Written question WQ94484

Wellbeing and support

The well-being of the social care sector is a priority and is a fundamental principle that underpins the Workforce Strategy Delivery Plan for Social Care 2024-27. We want to focus on ensuring the right environment for social care practice through well-being support and technological improvements.

A number of actions have been taken forward to support the well-being of our workforce including new peer networks. Social Care Wales has developed a health and well-being framework that sets out four commitments to ensure we build an engaged, healthy and motivated workforce. This framework aims to help create workplaces that support well-being for the people who work for them, as we know positive workplaces lead to positive care.

We have extended the free mental health support offer (Canopi) to the social care workforce. We also provide funding for the British Association of Social Workers, an independent professional membership organisation for social work, to continue to deliver the Professional Support Service (PSS) to all social workers and social work students in Wales.

These services and programmes of work are available for all social care workers across Wales, including those in Pembrokeshire.

Recruitment and Retention

Recruitment and retention of staff is also a priority, and all our work programmes aim to target challenges in the sector. In partnership with the sector and Welsh Government, Social Care Wales has published the Workforce Strategy Delivery Plan for Social Care 2024-2027 which describes the actions that will help to move the social care workforce forward over the next three years.

The Social Care Fair Work Forum has been taking forward work to ensure fair work is embedded in social care. Most recently the Forum has established the Social Care Partnership Group which, having consulted with the workers and providers, are currently finalising their priorities for the next 12 months in relation to developing HR policies based on models of best practice.

My officials have a series of meetings set up with Local Authorities across Wales to hear more about the innovative approaches they are taking to address recruitment and retention. Pembrokeshire and other West Wales authorities will be part of these meetings.

We have also invested in the social care workforce as we move in to the third financial year of our commitment to pay the Real Living Wage to social care workers in Wales.

In addition to our Real Living Wage investment, in recognition of the important role local authorities play in delivering core social services, Welsh Government provides £45m to the sector through the Workforce and Sustainable Social Services grant

We are also committed to the provision of training and development for the sector. The Welsh Government provides funding through Social Care Wales (SCW) to deliver a number of training and development programmes.