We welcome the Minister for Children and Social Care’s announcement today committing £1.5 million in funding to support the first phase of a National Social Care Academy for Wales.
The care academy, which will build upon the success of local care academies across Wales, will support care workers to train, develop their skills and gain qualifications.
Sarah McCarty, our Chief Executive, said: “We warmly welcome today’s announcement by the Minister for Children and Social Care about the National Social Care Academy for Wales.
“We know from the results of our annual survey of the social care workforce that most people join the sector because they want to make a difference to people’s lives.
“We want social care to widely be seen as a career of choice and people working in the sector consistently tell us that opportunities for progression, along with clear career pathways, alongside fair pay are essential to achieving that.
“The care academy will build on the work we and the wider social care sector are doing to create clearer career pathways and support care workers to develop their skills, gain qualifications and explore different roles across social care in Wales.
“We’re looking forward to working in partnership with Welsh Government and the wider sector to realise the vision of building a National Social Care Academy for Wales.”
As part of our work to support opportunities for progression, we’re a member of the Social Care Fair Work Forum, a social partnership group committed to embedding fair work and improving terms and conditions for people working within the social care sector.
The group has today launched a new draft voluntary pay and progression framework for social care in Wales, which is available on the Forum’s web pages.
Designed to highlight career pathways and opportunities, the framework sets out five job bands covering roles supporting adults or children and young people.
Each band outlines the expected values, attributes, skills, knowledge and understanding. The framework doesn’t currently include expected pay scales, but it proposes a starting pay point, and full pay scales will follow.