We Want You: Engaging young people in anchor careers

Organisation: One Gloucestershire Integrated Care System (ICS)

One Gloucestershire Integrated Care System (ICS) brings together key anchor organisations in Gloucestershire, including NHS, social care, public health and other public, voluntary and community sector organisations to build a healthier Gloucestershire.

Over the last year, One Gloucestershire ICS has delivered ‘We Want You’  - a co-designed health & social care careers outreach initiative. Reaching over 8000 secondary school students across the county, the team are supporting young people to think about their hobbies, skills and interests, and demonstrating how these interests can translate into meaningful careers within the health and social care sector.

Check out their recent campaign video to see this in action.

What challenges did you set out to address?

The NHS Long Term Workforce plan (2023) recognises a significant shortfall of health and social care employees at all levels and across settings, in both clinical and non-clinical roles. Similarly, the One Gloucestershire ICS Care Partnership Strategy (2022) identified bringing new people and skills into the system as well as nurturing and developing the current workforce as a key objective.

One Gloucestershire ICS knew how important young people are to the future of the system and the sustainability of the workforce pipeline. Feedback from career leads at the time revealed a lack of in-person health and social care employer career guidance for students in the early secondary years, spanning all sectors. One Gloucestershire ICS set out to address this, and empower young people to make informed decisions about their future careers by ensuring they have access to high-quality careers information, advice, and guidance from a young age.

What impact have you had?

Over 10 months, the ‘We Want You’ team delivered health and care career outreach workshops for Year 8 and 9 students in all 19 of their target schools in Gloucestershire. Combined with additional workshops with Year 7 and Year 10 students, the initiative has so far reached 8,176 students. It is expected that numbers will be considerably higher once social media advertising and website engagement numbers are included.

Feedback from career leads indicates that the project has been successful in filling the identified gap in careers and outreach education for young people, and has been the springboard schools have been looking for to initiate career conversations and inspire young people to explore careers within health and care that they hadn’t been aware of. 

“What attracted me {to the ‘We Want You’ offer}, was the fact that it was aimed at year 8s {and 9s}, there is so little at the moment aimed at the younger years or is very much aimed at Year 10 and 11, so the fact that they are getting this information so early is really valuable”. Careers Lead - Cleeve School, Cheltenham 

“Interventions like this allow us to get year 8s to be thinking about their futures, and how the decisions they are making now can affect them in the future and how they are performing in lessons as well”. Head of Year- Key Stage 3- Severn Vale School

Importantly, feedback from young people shows a significant increase in interest and awareness of health and social care careers:

“There are many options. NHS isn’t all doctors. There is always something to suit you.” Student, Ribston Hall High School 

“I want to help people, and I can see the different ways to do that.” Student, Homeleigh Park Academy

Finally, the initiative has been invaluable in bringing together partners from across the system. It has fostered closer working relationships with schools across the region, which has helped to identify areas for future development, workshops and campaigns.

What, specifically, made this happen?

Co-production

The initiative was co-produced with young people, ensuring the offer is relevant to the very people it’s aiming to support. At the start of the project, the team conducted focus groups at local youth groups throughout the county. Through the active participation of over 100 young individuals, including those from diverse backgrounds, ‘We Want You’ collaboratively co-designed the 'look and feel' of the project brand and future communication methods, ensuring the project resonates effectively with the target audience.

This co-production approach has ensured that the work of the project supplements, enhances, and is bespoke for their target audience.  

Working together across the system

Working closely with key stakeholders within the ICS and pooling resources,  the ‘We Want You’ project team built relationships with career leads and teachers - understanding their needs and maintaining a flexible approach. They’re also connected with multiple organisations across the system, including apprenticeship teams, the Department for Work and Pensions, and VCSE organisations such as The Prince’s Trust and Young Gloucestershire.  

Designing an adaptable and sustainable brand

The ‘We Want You’ brand, along with its in-school workshops, data collection tools, and resources - including printed materials and generic video content - has been produced in-house and is owned by the NHS. As a result it is perfectly designed for easy replication and dissemination. This adaptability allows health and care teams nationally to adopt and implement the initiative effectively, ensuring a broader impact on workforce development across the country. 

Digital marketing with a message

To support the project's future digital marketing efforts, the team commissioned a video production agency to create a "We Want You" careers video for our website and social media platforms. The video showcases young people engaging in fun hobbies, such as football or photography, followed by real professionals in health and care roles, visually explaining how they turned their passions into careers. The video concludes with a powerful and concise message encouraging young people to embrace their interests and passions. The child actors were drama students from Cleeve School in Cheltenham, making this a fantastic opportunity to involve young people in our anchor work.

Grounded in guidance

All of this work was grounded in the  'Gatsby Benchmarks' - a renowned framework of eight benchmarks that define what world class careers provision in education looks like.

What’s next for One Gloucestershire ICS?

One Gloucestershire ICS are keen to build on the success of the ‘We Want You’ campaign, and are developing more workshops and campaigns based on the engagement approach to address other regional challenges. 

For example, the team have piloted an anti-vaping workshop in three schools, featuring professionals from Primary Care, Radiography, Marketing, and Project Management, educating students on the health effects of vaping while subtly introducing young people to a range of health and care careers. 

One Gloucestershire ICS are also developing a 'Contextualising Maths in Health & Care Careers' workshop, aiming to address the attainment gap by inspiring students who are interested in health and care careers to understand the importance of achieving their Maths GCSE to support their career aspirations.

For more information about the programme:

https://www.onegloucestershire.net/campaigns/we-want-you/
Charlie Presley, We Want You Outreach Project Lead glicb.careers@nhs.net