A Guide to Working in Social Care – Employment Overview
Written by Daryl Buggle
The purpose of social care work is to provide support to individuals and groups who are disadvantaged, in vulnerable circumstances, at-risk or impacted by negative environmental factors. The social care sector covers a wide variety of disciplines and specialist areas affected by the above criteria including homelessness, disability, fostering support, residential care, addiction, and asylum/refugee.
Services available to the identified groups requiring social care support are provided normally by public, private and charitable organisations. These organisations require social care employees to provide services to service users and typical employment grades can include: social care worker, deputy manager, unit manager, service manager, operations manager and director of services. Due to the nature of the services provided, there is a need to have a steady team of individual employees who work permanently in the services, bu whot also are supported by a more flexible employment methodology to aid in times of crisis or increased service demand over a shorter time period.
As such, employment is most often offered on a permanent or locum basis. Permanent employment is offered by the employer directly to the employee. These positions are sometimes hired directly but frequently employers recruit a specialist recruitment service, such as Cpl Healthcare Social Care division, to identify suitable employees on the behalf of the given organisation.
The other option is locum or flexible employment. This employment is required in the social care sector due to the changeable requirements in services. An increase in referrals, the development of crisis situations, and permanent employees on sick leave, etc. create the demand for immediate additional staff support within these organisations. In this case, some employers have relief staff panels but often a specialist recruitment provider is engaged to offer shorter term employment for individual clients. Cpl Healthcare are Ireland’s premier locum recruitment provider, and in addition to working with private clients are also exclusive partners to the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland.
It is also worth notin,g employer organisations require a current Garda Vetting for all permanent or locum employees in their services. While employed with Cpl Healthcare we manage and obtain Garda Vetting on your behalf.
