CrossReach awarded for tackling social care recruitment challenges
Published on 11 June 2019
The Church of Scotland's Social Care Council, CrossReach, has been recognised for tackling recruitment challenges in the social care sector at the Scottish Social Services Awards.
The CrossReach recruitment programme, ‘Get into Care with CrossReach', designed in partnership with the Prince's Trust Scotland, won the ‘Making Change Happen' award for supporting young people under the age of 30 to get into social care.
The programme offers employability support, interview skills training and one-to-one coaching with a guaranteed interview at the end. Six young people were recruited into social care at the end of the recent pilot.
Breaking down barriers
In their 150th anniversary year, the team are ‘delighted' to have received the accolade.
Viv Dickenson, Chief Executive Officer at CrossReach, said:
"We are delighted to have won the award for ‘Making Change Happen' at the Scottish Social Services Awards.
"Our partnership with the Prince's Trust Scotland continues to enable less advantaged young people to enter social care as a career whilst being supported into employment with us through coaching, training and development over the five-week programme.
"We would like to extend our congratulations to all the worthy finalists, recognising the innovation and joined-up working across the sector, as well as valuing the work of individuals and services supporting people with social care in Scotland."
Mari Rennie, HR and Organisational Development Director at CrossReach, said:
"We're always trying to find new and innovative ways to break down barriers to people coming into social care.
"What was different about this programme is that, ultimately, we have changed the lives of a group of young people who are now working in social care, and the lives of service users themselves."
A short film featuring CrossReach was created for the awards ceremony, with the help of local film students, featuring two young women who have benefited from the CrossReach recruitment programme.
Making change happen
The awards category, ‘Making Change Happen', looked for a successful project or campaign to improve something or change something affecting the social services sector.
The ceremony was held at Mansfield Traquair in Edinburgh on 5 June, hosted by the Minister for Children and Young People, Maree Todd.
The Scottish Social Services awards are run by the Social Services Strategic Forum, which is a partnership of stakeholders across the social services sector. It was set up in late 2013 to develop and implement a shared vision and strategy 2015-2020 for the sector. It represents a strong commitment to partnership working across organisations and with government to deliver its vision for high quality and effective social services.
