Learn how the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Prince's Trust have given young people the support they need to start and sustain a career in health and social care.
What was the purpose of the partnership?
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and The Prince’s Trust started working in partnership at the end of 2019 with the ambition to support young people between the ages of 16-30 into sustainable employment within the sector. Drivers for this included:
- DHSC aims to help organisations create a more diverse workforce. With a focus on recruiting from local populations to build a workforce more representative of the local area to help ongoing work in narrowing inequalities.
- The NHS People Plan and, as of 2023, the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. Both contain themes around growing and retaining a representative workforce and a positive NHS workforce culture.
- The COVID-19 pandemic's impact on both young people’s prospects and the health and social care workforce.
- The Prince’s Trust's goal is to create opportunities for young people by supporting them into work, education, and training.
What has the work involved?
The Prince’s Trust has been working with South Central Ambulance and various Providers in several Integrated Care Systems. Including Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West, Sussex, Kent, and Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
The charity has worked in partnership with various health and social care providers to design the content of the programme, providing a tailored approach to meet local employment needs; delivered using a hybrid of in-person and online methods. The elements of the programmes to support recruitment have included:
- Pre-employment support packages for young people, with personalised development plans.
- Working with Providers to run targeted recruitment campaigns and values-based behaviour selection processes.
- Delivering training, varying from one day to three weeks in duration, addressing individual’s development needs and the employer’s (provider) requirements.
- Supporting young people with application forms and interview preparation.
- The introduction of guaranteed interview scheme for young people working with the programme.
From the point of job offer, The Prince’s Trust has supported young people to navigate pre-employment processes and onboarding requirements. Following employment commencement, the charity has continued to provide wrap-around support to both employers and young people to enable retention. This includes mentoring, needs-based grants to overcome financial challenges or barriers to starting work and access to psychological wellbeing resources (MYNDUP app).
What has this work cost?
The programme has been funded by DHSC and is free for both young people and employers (Providers) to access. An evaluation of the programme has evidenced that for every £1 of public sector spending, there has been a return of £5.62.
What are the benefits you have seen from this work?
Increased employment prospects for the local population, with 647 young people offered employment in the South East between 2019 and 2023. 42% of whom are working as Healthcare Assistants or Care Workers, although the range of roles is broad.
Supported diversity in the workforce, with 44% of those supported nationally coming from ethnic minority backgrounds during the 2019-2023 period, exceeding the target of 10%.
Supported increased social community value with 26% of starters living in IMD 1 (multiple deprivation quintile 1: most deprived) postcode areas. This has led to a workforce that’s more reflective of the local social demographic.
Improved staff retention - the evaluation shows that 84% of new starters in the South East region have remained in post for more than 3 months. Ensuring that job expectations are set with the young person and employer has been key to this. The national data from the MYNDUP app (mental wellbeing resource) has shown that 57% of users would likely have looked for another job without that support.
Reduction in staff absence - from surveys we know that 63% of users of MYNDUP would likely have taken time off work without the support from the app.
What are the lessons you’ve learned from this work?
Flexibility is fundamental. The packages of support for both employers and young people are tailored to their needs and context.
Be open-minded about processes. Work creatively to offer interview opportunities to the young people in the cohorts. For example, offering screening interviews ahead of formal interviews to get young people familiar with the process.
Find the mutual benefit in partnerships. Work collaboratively with partners to find mutually beneficial ways to work together that ultimately support more young people to work in the sector, increasing the diversity and capacity of your workforce.
Assign key contacts. Have named contacts in both the recruiting and supporting organisations to ensure that there is someone responsible for advocating, influencing and working collaboratively to lever the mutual benefits.
Think long-term. Use this as an opportunity to integrate schemes into existing organisational career progression pathways.
What is the next chapter in this story?
We are thrilled to say that the programme has been extended from October 2023 for a further three years. Therefore if you want to get involved please get in touch!
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