Women traditionally dominate caring professions, resulting in a significant gender imbalance within the social care sector. Men represent just 24%

There are many barriers for men to enter the sector including lack of information made available to them at the career decision part of their lives, low pay and particularly societies attitude towards male carers. These barriers have also left many employers with a very unbalanced workforce.

The arguments that only women can care for vulnerable people and that they work for “pin-money” have long been lost. These days no-one disputes that there are many benefits to end users in care to having male carers and to having a mixed gender workforce.

Men and women do have different caring cultures, and a balance of both of these is beneficial to service users. Care service users come from a wide cross-section of society and it is common sense that care providers should come from a similar cross-section. The fact is that the current workforce is unbalanced and potentially fails to meet the needs of many of its clients.

Men do seek employment in social care. A small-scale study conducted as a part of the Including Men project suggested that more men would apply if they were supported to do so. For example 20% of male respondents said they wanted more information and would consider a career in social care. Hill (Hill. R., 1990) suggests “That older men from working class backgrounds, unemployed as a result of industrial restructuring, are a potential recruitment pool for the sector, if they are given necessary training and support.”

There is no doubt that opening up the social care labour market to men not only helps supply skill shortages in the industry but it will also supply mixed workforces with different skills and talents and let men fulfil their potential and achieve job satisfaction.

The Equal Opportunities Commission has identified that care courses and apprenticeship are not targeted at men and many career advisors admit that they do not promote such careers to males. Men are also less likely to perceive themselves as having cared for a relative than women are.

Removing the barriers for the men to enter social care will mean that men will have the chance to achieve personal and professional fulfilment by doing a job they would enjoy and be good at. The EOC argue that gender barriers should be moved because

“that occupational segregation is bad for individuals, bad for business and bad for the economy. It makes sense for Britain to tackle occupational segregation now. It joins up principles of fairness and choice with the goals of driving up productivity and competitiveness to deliver prospects for all.”

This programme involved 15 men, mostly working as part-time, casual mentors with Includem who were recruited for the Programme. So far 14 have completed and we still aim for 100% completion. All have been offered full-time posts with Includem though some have chosen to retain their casual status in order to focus on direct work with young people. Many of the men came to social care later in life having lost out on educational opportunities earlier in their lives. They see the same deficits in the lives of many clients.

As well as the formal SVQ assessment each trainee undertook 10 days training, provided by Oilean according to a programme worked out with the managers at Includem. The programme included the range of knowledge required to complete an SVQ including Health and Safety, Managing Challenging Behaviour, Child and Adolescent Development, Communication, Child Protection, Children’s Rights.

Developing a gender balance programme aimed at men in care has always been a part of Oilean’s business plan, ever since the company was formed in 2003. However in 2004 that plan began to be formalised as a potential ESF funded programme and a researcher was recruited to develop the Programme business plan. However Objective 3 funding was withdrawn just as the programme was developed for presentation. At that point we approached Scottish Enterprises who agreed to fund a restricted programme with Modern Apprenticeship funding.

The Programme was highly successful, the candidates all developed new skills and confidence and gained the industry recognised qualification. However as a company we have developed our thinking around the programme and have developed it into an 80/ 20 Programme proposal for SE funding for 2007/8. The proposed programme being 80% male and 20% female, a reversal of the current gender split in social care. Our experience with Including Men has led us to consider that the outcomes might be made even more fruitful by including  the potential for discussion which includes BOTH men and women.

The Programme has been highly successful in many respects. For the men it has secured their place in their chosen profession. We anticipate that gender balance programmes  will continue to be a focus for our company over a number of years to come. The programme was short-listed in the 2006 Modern Apprenticeship Awards.