2 minute read
Summon the Care Heroes
Our decision to formally welcome colleagues and friends from Social Care into our Institute has been very widely welcomed by members.
Not only are we all being given the opportunity to understand and learn about the opportunities and challenges which social care presents, but we are also starting to develop ideas for how the IHSCM can contribute to meeting and overcoming them.
One of the central issues for social care is workforce. The full complement of the social care workforce is 1.6 million people, but there are around 150,000 vacancies right now – nearly 10% of positions are vacant. The big question then:
How do we recruit and retain talented people coming out of our schools and universities to a career in social care?
Stop 3 people in the street and ask them to name well known personalities from the world of health. I know that you will get a variety of answers, but you will get immediate answers from Florence Nightingale to Sir Magdi Yacoub. Now ask them to name similar personalities from the world of social care. I suspect the reaction will be blank expression and silence.
Our newspapers and news channels are full of revelations about inadequate care, but there is a hopeless absence of genuine good news stories – and an absolute absence of reference to the people who are achieving some wonderful successes.
Today, we start to do our bit to remedy this with the launch of a new IHSCM campaign – SUMMON CARE THE HEROES. Each week we will highlight the work of an individual or team delivering genuinely heroic social care work.
To kick off, today, it is our pleasure to introduce you to an intoxicatingly positive and uplifting individual. We give you:
ALEX WINSTANLEY
Alex is an award-winning social worker with international experience of working with children and young people. His years of experience as a teacher, carer and SENCo led to him setting up a not-for-profit organisation called Happy Smiles Training.
Happy Smiles Training CIC empowers disabled young adults to create positive social change, by delivering awareness training across schools, community groups, businesses and more (www.happysmilestraining.co.uk).
He is currently writing a series of children's books to support them to understand a range of long-term health conditions, including dementia, depression and cancer – and he has recently featured as one of our 20 minute social guests.
