About Cornwall Works 50+ Cares

Cornwall Works 50+ Cares was set up to boost the region’s capacity to care for its ageing population in the long term, as well as helping ensure higher employment rates for the over 50s.

By 2017 the share of the labour force over 50 will be around 34.4%. With more people wanting high quality support to live independently, the care sector needs to support and retain its existing staff to meet future demand. Working closely with employers, Cornwall Works 50+ Cares has helped to encourage care workers to stay in the sector by ensuring career progression routes are available to both new and current employees, as well as improving training provision for them.

Essentially, it has also stimulated entrepreneurship and more diverse roles within the sector, reflecting care recipients’ choice, personality and needs. Improving the nature of care for older people means the workforce needs a different set of skills, but we hope it will also make their work more fulfilling.
This project – supported by the European Social Fund – explored ways of providing support at an early stage for older workers under threat of redundancy, and encouraged employers to provide support for older workers who have recently started work again.

Cornwall Works 50+ Cares was run by Inclusion Cornwall (Part of the Cornwall Strategic Partnership and Cornwall Council) in partnership with Dott’s Senior Producer, Think Public. It was launched alongside the Cornwall Works 50+ project via a bus tour around Cornwall in October 2009, which sought to inform and engage as many people as possible.

The project supported the Cornwall Works – Cornwall’s approach to delivering welfare to work support in Cornwall. What Dott Cornwall brought to the table was extra capacity for innovation, by bringing the older workers and businesses to the forefront of creative solutions.

Dott diagnosed the issues affecting communities in relation to demographic change and employment, and identified the future needs and challenges of an ageing work population. We moved the project forward by co-designing solutions to help create new job roles and instigate the provision of care needs to keep the older generation in work for longer.

To find out more about the project, please contact Emma Gasson emma.gasson@thinkpublic.com