Decent Work in Social Care
Covid 19 special grant project
Evidence to shape action at a time of crisis and opportunity
Oxfam-UWS and British Academy funded rapid research project COV19\200127
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Our aim is to be a channel of the voices needed to help resolve a crisis and also progress beyond long established and systemic problems of low pay, lack of career, stressful work, hard to recruit and retail. This can help the big stakeholders, including Government both national and local, Commissioners and Providers, the NHS, Care provider networks, Advocacy and Charity organisations, find a way forward so that never again will some of the most vulnerable become the most afflicted.
There are 204,610 people working in Social Care in Scotland, nearly 7% of the whole Scottish workforce. For a long time many voices have been asking for and working towards change in the sector as a whole to secure quality care, and ideas for decent work have been central to that. Then the Covid-19 pandemic happened.
The demand for change in Social Care generated by the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic needs an employee voice in the conversations about how decent work can now significantly contribute to the urgent conversation to get care right. Grounded in a more secure and engaged workforce, a revitalised and appealing area of employment attracting, through new paths ,new people.
‘Decent Work in Social Care: evidence to shape action at a time of crisis and opportunity’ will contribute to this. It is an Oxfam-UWS decent work project, funded by the British Academy through a special grant for rapid research relevant to Covid 19. We aim to understand recent experiences, the positive and new challenges, and explore what the scope is for future progress in job quality.
We are looking firstly for front line workers from all social care settings to talk with us, in interviews via phone or digital video call systems, about their work. We will use what we have heard to report to policy makers and the general public about what can be done about attaining greater decent work. We are also keen to hear the employers point of view of the positive opportunities emerging and new challenges in dealing with those.
This research project is supported by the UWS-Oxfam Partnership. This partnership has successfully conducted research which added a workers voice to debates among those with the power to make policy decisions, government and employers.
Our Objectives
Our Objectives
Objective 1; Explore recent experience and identify opportunities to progress decent work
Objective 2; Present the front line staff and employer voice to inform national and local policy and programme development
The pandemic crisis has brought out into greater public discussion an increased awareness of the challenges of resourcing and managing social care.
Better supporting the care sector and care workers is presently a very high commitment, uniting many in a hope for constructive reform and change. While commitment is strong new evidence can focus policy-makers’ attention on concrete ideas for change which emerge from the voices of social care workers and their experience of their work.
This time of health and economic crisis offers a window of opportunity to provide a fresh take on the realities of job quality and ‘decent work’ and shape the preferred future of social care as partners plan and decide on what to do next.
Questions?
Questions?
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