Since 2017, the CareTech Foundation has sought to address the biggest concerns facing the social care sector by investing in and partnering with charitable organisations best positioned to deliver the change needed. An independent grant-making corporate foundation delivering meaningful impact to communities in the UK and overseas by supporting and championing the social care sector, care workers and those living in care, the Foundation supports a small number of significant partnerships with credible and high-quality charities and social enterprises.

The outcomes of such partnerships have shown that when you lean into and invest in minorities and underrepresented groups, the results can be staggering. Providing equal opportunities to those often overlooked diversifies our workforce, which ultimately helps recruitment and boosts performance.

We see the headlines, we hear the analysis about refugees, but we never hear the work being delivered by Breaking Barriers, an organisation that works with refugees who face great hardship in fleeing war, violence and persecution. In the UK, there are over 374,000 refugees who, when arriving here, nearly always face significant disadvantages, marginalisation and many barriers to securing employment, despite bringing a diverse range of skills, experience and aspirations.

Simultaneously, the health and social care sector itself is facing challenges in regards to its employment  – over 100,000 vacancies are advertised each day. Our partnership with Breaking Barriers tackled the challenge around recruitment by funding education and training for refugees interested in working in social care. Together, we created a bespoke recruitment pathway fit for refugees, testing the current processes and making adjustments, resulting in 60 people joining health and social care.  

Similarly, over the last few months, we have been partnering with Action for Kids, providing work experience opportunities to 24 young people with disabilities and/or autism per academic year with a goal to place five young people into paid employment. These individuals have so much potential, but for them, the sector that best understands them is often guilty of not giving them fair opportunities. By bringing them into the workforce, we want to evidence how well they can adjust but also how quickly the workplace can adapt to help them grow and develop.

I am very proud of all of our partnerships in this space. By taking on the challenge and building partnerships with expert organisations, we can answer that one big fear – ‘what happens now that we can’t recruit from overseas?’ We can start by recruiting those people already here and telling us they want to work in social care. We can invest in them because they have the passion and the commitment to learn and stay. Half the battle is bringing in people, the other half (the important half) is getting them to stay. Overwhelmingly, young people, refugees and marginalised groups stick around!

There is still work to be done. Improving performance means addressing recruitment, which can best be achieved through diversifying the workforce and providing opportunities to marginalised communities. We have years of experience in proving what works and want to share it with the sector.

Book your free ticket for Care Management Show on 27 June to hear more from Tariq in his session in the Leadership theatre.