The social care workforce is growing, and we need to inspire more people to consider this life changing career. That’s why we’re supporting the new Introduction to a Career in Social Care course developed by Scotland’s colleges and funded by the National Transition Training Fund.
We’ve worked with Scottish Care, Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland, COSLA, West College Scotland and College Development Network to develop a new tool on MySSSC which will help colleges to identify employers who are informed about the new course and able to offer suitable career opportunities to participants.
The free, six-week online course helps people who are unemployed to learn about careers in social care and decide if it’s the right choice for them. The College Development Network website shows which colleges are delivering the course and you can access an event recording to learn more about the course content and employability services.
We’re inviting MySSSC countersignatories to share opportunities in their organisation which course tutors can access and share with participants who are actively looking for a career in social care.
What happens when I add an opportunity on MySSSC?
Once you’ve submitted the form it will be shown to course tutors who can contact you about the opportunity.
Course tutors might ask you to provide guaranteed interviews for participants who complete the course in your local area, or invite you to take part in employer insight sessions or recruitment fairs. They may also share your information with participants who want to contact you directly.
We’ll keep your information for as long as we offer the service and we may contact you about similar initiatives in future. You can find out more about this in our privacy notice.
If your opportunities aren’t a match with any participants you may not be contacted. If you want to discuss your experience of using this new service, please email workforceplanning@sssc.uk.com.
Guidance for countersignatories
1. Sign into MySSSC and enter the ‘my employees’ area. If you’re a countersignatory for more than one organisation select the one you wish to enter opportunities for.
2. Select the ‘Introduction to a Career in Social Care’ tile and review the consent notice.
3. If you agree to the consent notice, you’ll be offered the option to create opportunities. You can also view those you’ve already saved and edit or delete as required.
4. Describe your organisation in up to 200 words. We encourage you to describe your organisation’s values and how these shape the support you provide as this will help tutors and participants decide if they would like to contact you.
5. Select the local authority where you have opportunities. If your organisation has services in several local authorities, please complete a form for each area.
6. Select a main care service for each entry you create. This allows us to display its location (town and postcode only) to college tutors. You can add up to five additional care services and enter a small amount of free text if you want to be very specific about location.
7. Describe the best way for college tutors or course participants to contact you. You can also provide a URL for an online recruitment page, a general email address for recruitment enquiries and/or a phone number. You should not enter the personal details of other colleagues. As the person completing the form, your name and email address will also be shown to colleges.
8. Select the roles you have available. We’ve provided boxes for support worker roles, but you can add others in the free text box.
9. Use the final box to enter other important details which participants will need to consider. For example, will employees need their own transport?
10. Once you have completed the form it is up to the college or course participant to contact you to discuss your opportunities further.