The Care and Health Career Academies Maturity Matrix serves as a structured framework to evaluate councils' progress and maturity level on their journey towards developing academies. it is intended to be used in conjunction with the Care and Health Career Academy toolkit.
State of readiness
The social care workforce comprises multiple organisations and agencies that are supported by a range of other partners, including academic institutions, government departments and health. It requires collaboration across these partner organisations to support workforce development at all levels.
The maturity matrix has been developed based on the NW ADASS Career Academy toolkit. It enables colleagues to self-assess progress towards developing a career academy across all the themes set out in the framework and working with a range of key partners.
These themes encompass workforce leadership, recruitment strategies, training and development arrangements, and collaboration with schools, colleges, universities, and care provider forums.
The five distinct progress levels are:
- First steps: what is the point of this?
- Compliant: has to be done, so we do it
- Strategic: is important to our success
- Integrated: is part of everything we do
- Disruptive: we are leading best practice
- Workforce lead: Dedicated, funded, adult social care workforce lead.
- Recruitment, training and development arrangements: Recruitment outsourced. Limited training and development team. Liaison with schools: This should include careers with both care providers and in social care regulated profession, for example, social workers, occupational therapists, approved mental health professionals, registered nurses, and registered managers.
- Liaison with schools**: Limited engagement with schools.
- Liaison with colleges**: Considers looking for students or working with local Further Education (FE) sector to plan future workforce. Seeking to create a partnership with FE college.
- Liaison with universities: Limited liaison with the local university or other universities.
- Care Provider Forum: A care provider forum.
- Labour market availability*: Little or limited labour market data. DWP forwards monthly state of the region report.
- Liaison with Department for Work and Pensions (DWP): Limited liaison with DWP. Recognition of the need to build stronger working relationships across all districts.
- Liaison with Integrated Care Board (ICB) or NHS partners: Early or limited liaison with ICB or NHS partners.
- Inclusive economic growth strategy: Limited engagement with economic lead partners within the council.
- Principal social worker (PSW), principal occupational therapist (POT), adult mental health professional lead: There is no PSW, POT or AMHP lead in post.
Please note * Labour market data availability requires dedicated funded analyst capacity, and ** Liaison with schools and colleges should include careers with both care providers and in social care regulated professions, for example, social workers, occupational therapists, approved mental health professionals, registered nurses, and registered managers.
- Workforce lead : Funded career academy lead and team. Identified funding streams for launch of the academy.
- Recruitment, training, and development arrangements: Recruitment service including support for the in-house and commissioned workforce. Support for international recruitment. Joint approaches with commissioning teams.
- Liaison with schools: Effective engagement with schools and a rich pipeline of work-ready young people joining the sector.
- Liaison with colleges: Has established a range of good-quality relationships with local college(s) and routinely exploits local links with FE sector as part of a wider future workforce strategy. Understands FE sector in the wider context of funding bodies, academies and wider academic routes to grow future workforce.
- Liaison with universities: Effective engagement with the local university or other universities. Student training placements across all disciplines social work, occupational therapy, mental health professional, management etc. Regional teaching partnership representation. CSW in post. Engagement with social care research initiatives. Secondments to/from or joint/hybrid post with the university.
- Care Provider Forum: Has established a range of good-quality relationships with local care providers and routinely exploits local links with the sector as part of a wider future workforce strategy. Understands the care provider sector in the wider context of local place, labour market, government policy and initiatives, routes to grow future workforce.
- Labour market availability: Shows a sophisticated understanding of the labour market locally, and its impact on local recruitment. Uses that data to target recruitment. Working closely with community organisations and partners to understand needs of local communities
- Liaison with DWP: Joint job fairs, events, 'live' lounges. Training of frontline officials on current social care and the sector’s values. Shared labour market data. Agree a joint business plan moving forward.
- Liason with ICB or NHS partners: Emergent mutual understanding of the complexity and interdependency of workforce challenges and risks across all sectors. Commitment to joint approaches and solutions. Recognition of unique local challenges and strengths across all sectors.
- Inclusive economic growth strategy: Has established a range of good-quality relationships with economic lead partners within the council and routinely exploits local links with the wealth generating and business sector, and other relevant regional forums, as part of a wider future workforce strategy. Understands the economic contribution of the sector in the wider context of new economic models, local wealth building, business development and support, and inclusive growth approaches routes to grow future workforce.
- PSW, POT, AMHP lead: All the regulated professional leads have corporate, organisational and management support to undertake peer review, provide professional supervision, support career progression at all levels, and to generate data to evidence the role and value of their profession.
- Workforce lead: Career academy established with funded lead and team, and sustainable funding stream(s).
- Recruitment, training, and development arrangements: Joint approaches with commissioning teams. Cross directorate and cross sector partnership working evidenced, including recruitment lead, training and development team, data analyst and economic development lead.
- Liaison with schools: An agreed, joint plan of activity and mutual organisational investment and support. With a pipeline of young people joining the sector. Case studies of the rewards of working in the sector and career progression of local, relatable, people.
- Liaison with colleges: Shows a sophisticated understanding of how to structure and exploit multi-agency and multi-year workforce partnerships with academic institutions. Looks for knowledge assets outside their own organisation. Understands what their council can do better than external partners, but also understands how to seamlessly integrate external expertise into organisational activities.
- Liaison with universities: An agreed, joint plan of activity and mutual organisational investment and support with a pipeline of graduate professionals joining the sector, and a programme of post-graduate support.
- Care Provider Forum: Shows a sophisticated understanding of how to structure and exploit multi-agency and multi-year workforce partnerships with care organisations and institutions. By default, looks for knowledge assets outside their own organisation. Understands what their council can do better than external partners, but also understands how to seamlessly integrate external expertise into organisational activities.
- Labour market availability: Shows a sophisticated understanding of the labour market locally, regionally and nationally, and its impact on local recruitment. Uses that data to target recruitment, develop new roles with the provision of the requisite training and development required, inform service redesign to meet statutory requirements and to support social justice and improve the quality of care.
- Liaison with DWP: Shows a sophisticated understanding of the labour market locally, regionally and nationally, and its impact on local recruitment. Uses that data to engage effectively with DWP local partners, inform targeted recruitment. Reciprocal education of DWP/ council/ care frontline staff. Optimise recruitment from a diverse pool of entrants. Maximise sector-based work academy programmes (SWAP).
- Liason with ICB or NHS partners: Shows a sophisticated understanding of how to structure and exploit multi-agency and multi-year workforce partnerships with ICB or NHS partners. Looks for knowledge assets outside their own organisation. Understands what their council can do better than external partners, but also understands how to seamlessly integrate external expertise into organisational activities.
- Inclusive economic growth strategy: Shows a sophisticated understanding of how to structure and exploit multi-agency and multi-year workforce partnerships with economic lead partners. Understands what their council can do better than external partners, but also understands how to seamlessly integrate external expertise into organisational activities.
- PSW, POT and AMHP lead: The regulated professionals and their teams are enabled to work to the top of their licence to safeguard social justice and the quality of care. They are recognised as national peers, are valued and celebrated for the quality-of-service delivery, and individuals are leading exampes of their profession.
- Workforce lead: Career academy development project in progress
- Recruitment, training, and development arrangements: In-house recruitment. Cross social care sector training and development programme.
- Liaison with schools: Proactive engagement with schools, visiting speakers at schools, education enterprise advisers, workplace experience opportunities.
- Liaison with colleges: Routinely enters into small-scale ad hoc projects with local college(s). Reliance on council staff experience(s) or individual engagement as the main route to opening opportunities. Early engagement with joint funding approaches.
- Liaison with universities: A programme of engagement with the local university or other universities. Representation on a regional teaching partnershio. Currently host or have hosted a Consultant Social Worker (CSW).
- Care Provider Forum: An active care provider collaboration forum, with coproduced innovation, addressing workforce needs and new ways of working.
- Labour market availability: Comprehensive labour market data available at a single point of access across council, ward and lower layer super output area (LSOA) footprints by demographic and protected characteristics. DWP work closely with local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) and council or combined authority to understand data.
- Liaison with DWP: A programme of engagement with local DWP partners. Access to monthly labour market data and place-based reports. Arrange quarterly meetings with leads from each district along with group lead
- Liason with ICB or NHS partners: Mutual representation and recognition on workforce forums.
- Inclusive economic growth strategy: Developing local links with the wealth generating and business sector and other regional forums to amplify the relationship between the sector and inclusive growth, and the importance of wealth in health and wellbeing.
- PSW, POT, AMHP lead: The PSW, POT and AMHP have protected time to provide professional leadership to that discipline.
- Workforce lead: Identified funding for dedicated career academy project manager.
- Recruitment, training, and development arrangements: Recruitment outsourced. Training and development offer to in-house and commissioned workforces.
- Care Provider Forum: An information exchange care provider forum, transactional in nature.
- Liaison with schools: A programme of engagement with schools.
- Liaison with colleges: Has identified an attractive source of FE students and future workforce but lacks experience of how to structure an interaction.
- Liaison with universities: Regular and established engagement with the local university and other universities.
- Labour market availability: Significant labour market data but only available in disparate form. Access DWP avenues where can obtain specific labour market data.
- Liaison with DWP: Regular liaison with DWP. Build on relationships and share good practices across districts. Use the DWP place based approach data to market the sector and enable local people to understand the roles and career opportunities.
- Liasion with ICB or NHS partners: A programme of engagement with ICB or NHS partners.
- Inclusive economic growth strategy: Established joint working, policies and procedures with economic lead partners within the council, combined authority and regional entities.
- PSW, POT, AMHP lead: There is a PSW, POT and AMHP lead in post.