Does your community group provide care? Are you recruiting or will you soon be recruiting new staff (care support workers, personal assistants or admin officers)?

The South London Partnership (SLP) is offering incentives to voluntary sector organisations in South West London (Merton, Sutton, Croydon, Wandsworth, Kingston and Richmond) that provide services in the health and social care sector and are about to recruit new members of staff. 

By being part of their programme, which is funded by the NHS Integrated Care Partnership until March 2025, you will:

1. Receive support in publicising your role.
2. Benefit from an initial screening / vetting of candidates.
3. Be able to have the successful candidate on a 3 week work placement paid by SLP.
4. Offer an interview to the candidate at the end of the 3 weeks – if successful the programme will provide in-work support to both the candidate and employer for one year.

All placements are for 3 weeks, 25 hours per week, with one day offsite dedicated to employability skills training (organised by SLP). The funding can support 50 employees across South West London to go through the programme in private, NHS or voluntary sector settings.

Other incentives include: 

1. Your organisation will receive £900 per placement (up to a max of 2 placements).
2. DBS payments for up to two participants.
3. Toolkits for employers to support new entrants to care roles.
4. Careers advice sessions and interview skills workshops for the employee (fully funded). 
5. Reflection and feedback sessions.

Your organisation will need to: 

1. Be CQC registered if providing care services.
2. Hold genuine vacancies that will be ringfenced for placements for the duration of the programme and possible interview afterwards. This programme is not for you if you need staff but do not have the funds to recruit; it is for organisations that are in a financial position to recruit anyway but want to utilise a different recruitment channel/framework.
3. Ensure vacancies pay the London Living Wage or above (zero-hour contracts are excluded from this programme). 
4. Be able to work with the care hub to tailor the on-placement needs.
5. Have a staff member who is able to mentor/supervise the participant.
6. Be able to provide feedback. 

Benefits: 

As an employer, you will:

1. Be receiving a ‘try before you buy’ essentially through a brokerage service. 
2. Be supporting the recruitment process, specifically for hard-to-fill and retain roles. 
3. Be receiving support to retain staff through wraparound support. 

Interested?

Contact Valentina by email or phone 07967 862 368.