Introduction

Many social service employers find recruiting and retaining workers with strong social care values a challenge. The consultation for Social Services in Scotland: a shared vision and strategy 2015 -2020; confirmed this and one of the agreed actions in it is to support employers to ‘more strongly incorporate values-based recruitment approaches’.

Here you will find resources to help employers use and embed values-based approaches to recruitment and retention. We asked employers what would help them and have included their suggestions. Please note these resources are only for guidance and if your organisation already has a values-based approach to recruitment then you do not need to change it or incorporate the tools here.

There are also resources for workers and potential workers. These should help them understand what social care values are. They should also enable people to prepare for applying for jobs by explaining the expectations employers are likely to have, and to decide if they are the right fit for the role they are applying for.

Many of the resources are adapted from ones developed by Skills for Care in England and we are grateful for their permission to adapt these for Scotland. We are also grateful to Lisa Dunbar from Stirling Council, Balgillo Nurseries, RNIB Scotland and ELCAP Ltd for their help creating this toolkit.

Some of the resources include the Common Core of skills, knowledge and values. The Common Core outlines the attributes that everyone working in the social service sector should have and provides an opportunity for shared understanding and practice across different services. You can find out more about the Common Core here.

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