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The policy on service user and carer involvement in
recruitment was approved in November 2005, having been drafted in
conjunction with service users and staff who had been involved in
recruitment processes. Since that time it has been rolled out
across the county and there has been a significant increase in the
number of teams who have involved users and carers in their
recruitment processes. Examples include:
- people being involved on formal interview panels
- preparing questions for candidates
- shortlisting candidates, and
- taking part in separate workshops where candidates deliver a
presentation and service users ask questions and provide feedback
for the recruiting manager.
We have put together some information about involving service
users and carers when recruiting:
Here are two examples of where users/carers have been
involved in the recruitment processes for KCC
"Following a visit to the Carer's fair in Gravesend, which we
found very useful; we filled in a 'feedback form' and ticked the
box that we were interested in public involvement. We subsequently
received a telephone call, would we like to sit on an interviewing
panel with other service users for two new appointments, with some
fear and trepidation we said yes!
The posts were Director of Operations and Director Policy,
Performance and Quality Assurance, we turned up at the posh hotel
and had ten to fifteen minutes over lunch with each of the
candidates, how interesting for us service users and carers to be
able to have some influence over such 'high powered' appointments.
The Managing Director - Adult Services, Oliver Mills spent some
time asking for our views and opinions and these were fed into the
overall interview process."
From Mr & Mrs Onley
This is an extract, to read the full article see the
Summer
2006 Public Involvement Newsletter.
"We wanted to involve carers/users in the recruitment process and
succeeded with the help of our colleagues to enlist the cooperation
of two "volunteers" who were carers. On the day of the interviews
we set them up in a room (with expert support) and they compiled a
short series of questions with a simple scoring system.
The candidates were advised that the exercise would take place in
advance and they spent 15-20 minutes with the carers before being
interviewed by the panel. The feedback from the carers was very
enlightening-one candidate did not seem to engage at all and failed
to see the importance of relatives being involved in the review
process. This person was not appointed!"
From Laura Macleod
This is an extract, to
read the full article see the
Winter
2006/07 Public Involvement
Newsletter. |