Developing the Young Workforce Dundee & Angus delivered a successful career insight project that saw 24 S2 male pupils from Morgan Academy in Dundee attend a Men into Care event at the school where they gained a greater understanding of careers and pathways within the Health and Care sectors.
It is important that we encourage our male pupils to enter into the Health and Care sectors as there is a growing need for staff within these sectors due to our increasingly ageing population. Only 8 – 10% of Nursing students in Scotland are male and 90% of the NHS’s qualified nurses, health visitors and midwives are women, so we have quite a way to go before we have an equal gender split. Care home residents prefer that their caregiver is the same sex as them. This means that we need far more men to go into Social Care to help support this.
On the day of the event, we were fortunate to have a number of organisations volunteering to support us – Dundee & Angus College, NHS Tayside, University of Dundee School of Nursing and Health Sciences, the Scottish Ambulance Service, the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and Angus Health & Social Care Partnership.
The organisations set up four stations – “Can you think like a Nurse?”, “Childcare Loose Play”, “Social Care in the Home” and “Emergency!”. The pupils spent time moving around the stations and carrying out 20 minute activities at each. The male facilitators spoke to the young people about their journeys and how they came into the Health and Care Professions.
After the activities, the young people were all presented with certificates with a note of the activities they took part in on them so they can use them when filling out CVs and personal statements if required.
The feedback from the event was very positive, with 23 of the young people saying that they understood more about what the different careers and opportunities are within Health and Care now after the event. 20 of the 24 pupils also said they had learned more about aspects of Health and Care that they previously knew nothing about.
The young people were given advice on where to find further information and who to speak to within the school if they wanted more information about a career in Health or Care.
If you are interested in engaging with local young people, offering a visit to your business or taking part in a similar activity, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with DYW Dundee & Angus – we can support you throughout – contact@dywtaycities.co.uk.