Agenda item

That the Committee acknowledges and supports the efforts being made to cultivate and develop social work and occupational therapy students within the Council.

The Workforce Development Manager introduced the report by stating that social care was becoming more challenging as people now had more complex and demanding social health and care needs.  She stressed that Social Services had a strong and stable workforce that was key to delivering high quality, effective and consistent practice to those that needed it and by investing development within the workforce helped make employees feel valued which increased motivation and improved job satisfaction.  She explained that every year the service was in receipt of a grant from Social Care Wales called the Social Care Wales Workforce Development Programme Grant which had recently been reviewed and had increased the Social Work Offer to Local Authorities.

The Chief Officer (Social Services) congratulated the Workforce Development Manager and the team on the creative way that they had taken forward the successful workforce development within the portfolio, stating that currently there were no vacancies for Occupational Therapists or Adult Social Workers and that they were also practically fully staffed on Residential Childcare workers.  There were, however, known issues in Children’s Social Work which the Senior Manager (Children and Workforce) and the team were working through.

In response to a comment by Councillor Mackie, the Senior Manager for Adults said that they had taken some initiatives with local High Schools within their Health and Social Care Courses that were run locally and had given talks on what it was like to be a Social Worker which had inspired a number of students to take it further.  In addition, they regularly went into Glyndwr University to promote the role.

Councillor Gladys Healey asked if people were recruited from different minorities so that Social Workers were able to understand the different cultures.  In response, the Senior Manager - Safeguarding and Commissioningconfirmed that Social Working Teams across Flintshire were representative of the diversity of Flintshire and had a number of people from different ethnic backgrounds and Eastern European communities and equally important, Welsh speaking Social Workers.

Councillor Wren questioned if more mature applicants with relevant life skills were excluded for the Occupational Therapy Traineeship, given the qualifications listed in 1.06 of the report.  In response the Senior Manager - Safeguarding and Commissioning explained that as a degree course, the application process was dictated by the University but support was also offered to individuals to undertake an entrance course so that they could then go and access the degree course. She also confirmed that there was no discrimination to the application process and that Flintshire funded both the Foundation Couse plus the additional two years.

The recommendation in the report was moved by Councillor Mackie and seconded by Councillor Wren.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee acknowledges and supports the efforts being made to cultivate and develop social work and occupational therapy students within the Council.