Sign up to the Social Care Commitment

Skills for Care has launched the Social Care Commitment, an agreement about improving workforce quality across the whole of the adult social care workforce.

Its purpose is to ensure public confidence that people who need care and support will always be supported by skilled people who treat them with dignity and respect.  

The commitment, developed by people across the sector who understand how busy people working in care are, is made up of seven statements and supporting tasks that help workers and employers put the commitment into practice. They focus on issues including effective communication, upholding dignity and protecting privacy. The tasks can be used to generate evidence for the Common Induction Standards and adult social care qualifications.

When you sign up you will be given access to a range of resources from across the sector that will help with workforce development and issues including recruitment and retention and worker safety.

Signing up will ensure everyone in your workforce is working towards implementing the values and behaviours that you've committed to.

The commitment automatically populates personal and organisational development plans that can be used to support learning and development ensuring the commitment is not just words but has a real, practical impact.  

The commitment will have a major role to play in improving public confidence in the sector. From December people thinking about using care and support services will be able to visit the NHS Choices website to see which employers have signed up. It will give people useful information about the culture of an organisation and give providers who have made the commitment an edge over their competitors.

To watch short films clips explaining the importance of signing up to the commitment and how it can be embedded across different organisations visit www.vimeo.com/socialcarecommitment or download the video files from  www.skillsforcare.org.uk/thesocialcarecommitment.

To sign up to the commitment visit www.thesocialcarecommitment.org.uk.