Recruitment campaign seeks to promote social work

The Northern Ireland Social Care Council (NISCC) has launched the UK’s first-ever television recruitment campaign for social workers.

Under the banner ‘Social Work, Works!’ the hard-hitting campaign, which goes live Wednesday October 17, contains gripping images featuring real-life social workers and settings. The four 30-second-long advertisements are aimed at curbing an imminent skills shortage of social workers in Northern Ireland. The campaign presents a positive image of social work as a career choice and reflects the diversity and challenge social work offers as a profession.

The campaign will run from October to mid-December to coincide with the application period for social work training courses.

Explaining the rationale behind the recruitment campaign, Jeremy Harbison, Chair of the NISCC said: “Recent statistics indicated that there had been a startling 37 per cent fall in applications over the last five years and that intakes into local DipSW Programmes fall consistently short of targets set.

“Facing such disturbing figures the NISCC has taken immediate action to help stem the fall in numbers of applicants to social work programmes.

“With almost 100 per cent of newly qualified social workers obtaining employment in Northern Ireland each year, it is clear that there are real job opportunities for the right person. It is important that young people are made fully aware of the diverse nature of employment open to those with a Diploma in Social Work.”

Welcoming the recruitment campaign Hugh Connor, Executive Director of Social Work, South and East Belfast Health and Social Services Trust, said that with an ever expanding social care sector, the Social Services Trust urgently needed fully qualified and trained staff to take on the responsibilities across the varied areas of social work. (MB)