Cadet scheme launched to ease care worker shortage

Walnut Care, based in Lincolnshire, will run the programme over the summer holidays

Young people have been experiencing what it is like to work in the care industry as part of a plan to plug job vacancies.

Lincolnshire-based agency Walnut Care has created a Home Care Cadets programme, giving 17 and 18-year-olds training and experience over the summer holidays.

One of those taking part, Rachel, 17, said she believed "everyone deserves care" but "it's an industry that not enough people go into".

In May, chief executive Melanie Weatherley said the company had been unable to recruit locally "however hard we tried".

Ms Weatherley, who chairs the Lincolnshire Care Association, said a shortfall in staff had led to "waiting lists getting longer for people needing care".

The cadets have been given the chance to learn skills including moving and handling and basic life support.

Rachel said: "I think the care sector is really interesting careers wise. It's definitely one of the careers I'm looking at."

Another participant, Abubakar Zainab, 18, said: "I want to take care of people in need, and this is the best opportunity to gain work experience for that role."

Alice Weatherley says she hopes the scheme will inspire the next generation of carers

The latest figures from charity Skills for Care reported a vacancy rate of 6.5% in the adult care sector in June 2025.

Alice Weatherley, learning and development lead at Walnut Care, said she hoped the programme would help tackle the difficulties the sector faces with recruitment.

She said: "Caring is seen as an unskilled job, when actually it's a highly-skilled job where you can have a long career.

"We need to change that mindset."

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