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Care and health career academies hub

Here, you’ll find resources, guidance and case studies developed to provide practical advice and insights from existing academies. These were developed to support places that are in the process of, or considering, developing a career academy.

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The adult social care sector has faced significant challenges with recruitment and retention. An emerging approach to these challenges is the implementation of care and health career academies. The academies support local areas to think differently about workforce pressures. They support the workforce pipeline, boosting recruitment and retention, and aid workforce development.

Nationally, there is an increasing number of career academies, and there is strong interest to share emerging learning from across the country. The career academies are relatively new initiatives, and the national picture is constantly evolving. This hub has been designed to share good practice, develop a better understanding of academies, and share insights from across the regions to support sector-led improvement.

Resources

We've worked with academies, North West ADASS and West Midlands ADASS to develop a suite of resources to share emerging learning from existing academies to support councils and partners with the implementation of new academies. This includes:

Care and health career academy toolkit provides a guide that supports areas in understanding career academies, and how to set them up by considering initial design, set-up and keeping an academy going.

Maturity matrix provides a structured framework to evaluate councils' progress and maturity level on their journey towards developing academies

What good looks like includes six case studies and showcases good practice, success factors and evidence of what works. It provides practical advice and insights from existing academies across the regions. 

National care and health career academies community of practice

As the demand for skilled professionals in the care and health sector continues to grow, collaboration and knowledge-sharing across regions become crucial. We've established a national community of practice (CoP) for care and health career academies to facilitate connections, foster learning, and address shared challenges faced by social care practitioners working in different councils and organisations. 

The CoP is a collaborative peer support network, providing a forum for academies to meet, network and share innovative approaches. It supports sector-led improvement by sharing learning, challenges, ideas, models of good practice, and supporting problem solving to improve recruitment and retention in adult social care.

Virtual CoP meetings are held on a monthly basis. An online platform, Knowledge Hub has been established for CoP members to share resources, engage in discussions and access relevant materials.

To join the CoP and to receive meeting notifications, email [email protected].