Swansea Council’s international social worker recruitment drive is heading for the States and Europe.
Following the success of its local recruitment campaigns and previous recruitment from Europe, the local authority is utilising the skills of agencies in America and Germany to find staff to boost its workforce.
Due to the national shortage of social workers Swansea, like many other councils in Wales and England, has experienced difficulties in recruiting Child Care Social Workers needed to meet demand for protection and support for vulnerable youngsters.
The number of looked after children in the past year has increased by forty percent. There are 522 looked after children in Swansea and 225 on the Child Protection Register.
The increase in workloads has placed pressures on teams and has made the recruitment and retention of staff more challenging.
In recognition of this and to support the improvements to Child and Family Services, next year’s council budget has additional resources for the recruitment of social works in child and family services.
Measures locally such as a successful Open Day for final year Social Work Students have resulted in the Authority recruiting a number of very skilled Social Work Students who will be joining the Authority when they complete their courses in May 2010.
But even this success will not be sufficient to meet needs locally.
Therefore, like many other authorities across the country, Swansea Council will again be recruiting experienced social workers from overseas.
Two agencies are being used to recruit the additional social work posts.
The authority used Jacaranda for the successful recruitment of social workers from Germany.
The other, UK Pro, which supports recruitment from the USA, has been used successfully by a number of other Authorities who were contacted.
UK Pro pay all expenses for Council staff in order that the interviews can be conducted in America. Swansea Council is planning to send one HR and two social services specialists to conduct interviews for potential candidates for the Swansea posts at no additional cost to the authority.
Swansea Council Cabinet member for social services Cllr Nick Tregoning said: “Improving Child and Family Services is a priority for Swansea Council. “To support these improvements we need additional Child Care Social Workers to provide what our children and families need.
“This is not the first time that the Authority has recruited from overseas with success and I am looking forward to welcoming skilled, experienced and enthusiastic social workers from home and away.
“I am also excited by the prospect of learning from social workers from abroad to develop the service we offer to children and their families.”
Silke Koehlich, aged 32, is from Germany and came to Swansea in 2008. Originally from Nurenburgh she now works in child protection.
She said: “Swansea has lots of offer. It is a great place and I work within a very supportive team.
“I have a challenging role. However it is very rewarding when what I do has a positive impact on a child’s quality of life and future.
“I hope that people will come forward and give Swansea a try. I am very happy that I came here.”
