Building Foundations for the Future: Gill Kelly on Collaboration, Learning and Legacy
As her time leading the West Midlands International Recruitment Programme came to a close, Gill Kelly reflected on the partnerships, learning and people that have shaped the programme’s success.
From the outset, the Programme brought together local authorities, care associations, providers, workforce organisations, regional partners and national bodies.
Locally, grant-funded projects allowed local authorities to tailor support to the needs of their areas. Regionally, partners shared learning, resources and intelligence. Nationally, the West Midlands worked alongside other regions to influence discussions and highlight emerging issues.
Gill believes this collaborative approach has been one of the programme’s greatest strengths. She said, “We wanted collaboration across the region, not just at the regional level but also across all local authority areas. We were excited too at the growing number of community based organisations who became engaged with the Programme bringing a vital additional dimension and massive added value.”
The result has been a network of relationships and partnerships that will continue to benefit adult social care long after the Programme itself concludes.
Keeping People at the Centre
While workforce data, dashboards, programme plans, financial reporting and delivery frameworks all played crucial roles, Gill was clear that the Programme’s success could not be measured through numbers alone.
Everything came back to people. She said, “What about the international care workers? Are we doing what’s really needed for them? These are the questions we kept coming back to.”
Despite needing to respond to the rapidly changing landscape there was a conscious effort to ensure the human stories remained visible.
For many international care workers, the journey to the UK involved leaving family, familiar communities and established careers behind. For some displaced workers, periods of uncertainty were accompanied by significant financial and emotional pressures.
As Gill observed, sometimes the most important insights didn’t come from spreadsheets or reports, but from taking the time to hear people’s stories.
Stories That Stay With You
One story that has stayed with her came from Coventry, where drop-in support sessions were established in partnership with Tulia for displaced international care workers.
Eventually, she secured a place at Nottingham University to train as a mental health nurse. There are numerous examples of desperate care workers securing a new job.
Other examples were often simpler, but equally powerful. In Warwickshire, practical resources were developed to help workers understand unfamiliar aspects of life and work in the UK, including a guide to slang and a simple cookbook.
Gill said, “It’s important not to make assumptions regarding what people from other countries and cultures know about our ways. Something that feels obvious to one person may be completely unfamiliar to someone else. Taking the time to properly induct new starters with the little things as well as the big not only helps them settle into their role and stay in their job, but importantly also has a positive impact on the quality of care people receive.”
What International Recruitment Has Taught Us
Gill reflected on the importance of ensuring national partners understood what was happening on the ground. She said, “We shared our learning with the Department of Health and Social Care and the UKVI in order to ensure the local picture was understood and in the hope that this would influence policy and future programmes.”
One of the most interesting aspects of our discussion centred on what international recruitment can offer the wider adult social care workforce.
Questions around induction, belonging, wellbeing, ethical employment, career progression and workforce support are relevant to everyone working in care.
Gill believes there is a significant opportunity to build on what has been learned. She said, “It’s not all about us teaching them. The question is what can we learn from each other?”
At the same time, the sector has learned new ways of supporting workers through ethical recruitment, pastoral care, training, mentoring and tailored induction.
As Gill noted: “All employment should be ethical. It shouldn’t just be ethical for people coming from other countries.”
Looking Ahead
Whilst there is still much to do, she sees considerable opportunity to build on the foundations that have already been established. The systems, partnerships, learning and relationships developed through international recruitment have the potential to influence broader workforce development for years to come.
The International Recruitment Programme may be coming to an end in March 2027, but exploitation sadly remains a significant issue within the adult social care sector. Gill believes we have an important opportunity to build on the anti-exploitation work initiated through the Programme as part of a wider safeguarding and workforce wellbeing agenda. The learning generated can continue to support ethical, safe, and compassionate recruitment as well as employment practice, both for internationally recruited care workers and across the broader workforce. There is also a clear opportunity to continue sharing this learning more widely, so amplifying the learning nationally.
Gill reflected positively on the flexibility afforded to regions through the Programme’s design. Rather than prescribing solutions, the Department of Health and Social Care gave regions the freedom to understand local challenges and develop responses that reflected local need.
For Gill, one of the key lessons for future such national programmes is recognising the difference between what works best locally and what should be provided nationally.
While local authorities and regional partnerships are often best placed to understand their communities and respond flexibly, some challenges require national infrastructure to avoid duplication, enhance more streamlined working, and optimise outcomes for displaced workers.
She therefore suggested that future programmes could benefit from nationally coordinated systems such as a shared data platform, job-matching service and mailbox function.
Ultimately, Gill believes the success of the Programme demonstrates the value of combining national ambition with local delivery and trusting local partnerships to develop solutions that work for their communities.
Reflecting on what lies ahead, she described the programme as: “A launch pad for the next phase – broadening support across the entire adult social care workforce ”
“That next phase may look different from international recruitment, but many of the principles remain the same: collaboration, innovation, artificial intelligence, evidence, ethical employment, workforce support and a relentless focus on people.”
Food for Thought
When we asked Gill what message she would leave for colleagues across adult social care, her response was both simple and powerful: “Where there’s a will, there’s always a way.”
She talked about Catherine Booth, co-founder of The Salvation Army – opposer of exploitation, champion of women’s’ equality, advocate for the poor, and initiator of social action programmes in the 1800s. Gill shared one of her favourite quotes from Catherine: “In order to better the future, we must disturb the present.”
Over the last three years, the programme has challenged assumptions, responded to changing circumstances, amplified the voices of international care workers and demonstrated the power of working together.
Most importantly, it has laid foundations that the adult social care sector can continue to build upon in order to better the future.
Click here to read Part Two, where Gill reflects on the power of collaboration, the lessons learned from supporting international care workers, and what the future could hold for workforce development across adult social care.
