Sector skills organisations announce merger
Joe Lepper
Friday, August 28, 2015
The two sector skills councils covering children's professions across health and justice are to merge.
Skills for Health and Skills for Justice said they are "integrating" into one body with a remit to develop apprenticeship standards in both sectors as well as improve training.
Roles covered by the new integrated sector skills council to be called Skills for Health and Skills for Justice, include child and adolescent mental health (CAMHS) workers, children’s speech and language therapists, youth offending team officers, substance misuse specialists, victim support workers and prison officers.
Skills for Health chief executive John Rogers will head the new integrated body.
He said that “customers and stakeholders will see very little change to the services that they receive”, adding that over the next year to 18 months the new body will look at “maximising the strengths and expertise of both organisations”.
A joint statement from Skills for Justice chair Sir Duncan Nichol and Skills for Health chair Chris Hannah added that the new body will cover a “wide expanse of UK public services” also including the police, fire services, armed forces as well as health and youth justice roles.
Recent Skills for Health work in the children’s sector has included the launch of revised national occupational standards for children’s and young people’s health services.
These updated standards were launched in January and are aimed at supporting employers in developing training, job specifications and designing services covering specialist children’s roles.
