New Yorkshire-based social care charity set to launch with series of events

The charity is holding a series of masterclasses across Yorkshire between 7 September and 4 October, aimed at offering practical advice to social care companies.

CEO Nick Swash said: “Social care at the moment is very individualistic. Everyone is a private business and competes against each other, and everyone is trying to make more money than the company down the road. Unless that changes then social care won't change.

“We see ourselves as the second wave of pushing for change in social care. We believe the situation is too big for any one government to control. We've had 30 years of lobbying successive governments with little change, hopefully 30 years of working together to build a sector that supports itself can provide that change. It's a big challenge, and it's never been done, but there's no reason not to try.”

The charity aims to create pop-up carer community centres, where people can donate caring equipment they no longer require such as incontinence pads or walking aides, enabling those who need them to collect them for free.

The charity also hopes to provide a pathway for unpaid carers to progress into a career in social care. Mr Swash noted that he hoped this would help to combat recruitment and retention issues experience by care firms, as well as improve career prospects for people who have spent time as carers.

He added: “When you’re a carer, and that caring stops, there is a massive void. You’ve been doing this job 24/7, and suddenly you aren't doing it any more, and your life is at a crossroads. That person is left at home on their own. We want to catch people at that point, and we can look at offering training or volunteer work so they can retrain into caring as a full time job.”

Yorkshire Care Alliance's first masterclass event will be held in Scarborough at CU Scarborough, on Ashburn Road. The event will focus on workplace culture. Successive events will be held in Selby, on 19 September, Harrogate, on 26 September, Hessle, on 27 September, and York on 3 October.

A final event, which will take the form of a play about dementia, will be held on 4 October in North Allerton. This event will be open to carers as well as businesses. More information and tickets for the events can be found on the Yorkshire Care Alliance website.