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Mar 2023
Social workers recruited from Zimbabwe and South Africa begin work in Harrogate
Social workers recruited from Zimbabwe and South Africa to help plug the social care staffing crisis in North Yorkshire have begun working in Harrogate.
Adult social care has been experiencing well documented recruitment problems in recent years, which has left some providers struggling to hire qualified social workers.
It has previously been reported that on any given day there are at least 1,000 care jobs available across the county.
To address this, a North Yorkshire County Council report said the authority ran several large recruitment campaigns in the UK for more than 30 social worker vacancies but had “very limited” success.
It found recruits were also often newly qualified social workers and not yet ready to manage more complex work.
The report said that with full-time roles unfilled, expensive agency workers have also been used.
Since August, the council has overseen an international recruitment drive with the aim of hiring 30 social workers and five occupational therapists.
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The first cohort of social workers arrived in Harrogate towards the end of last year and the second cohort arrived in January and February of this year.
The new arrivals have been given three weeks of training and have also been allocated a “community buddy” to help them settle into their new country.
North Yorkshire County Council’s executive member for health and adult services, Cllr Michael Harrison, who is also the Conservative councillor for Killinghall, Hampsthwaite and Saltergate, said:
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