Changing the perception of social care – and achieving better careers for better care

Inspired by the work of #SocialCareFuture in setting out a new and more positive vision for what care and support is about, IMPACT has been working with Scottish Care and partners to ‘reframe’ public understanding of social care in Scotland.

Building on calls by the Feeley Review for new thinking to ‘shift the paradigm’, this was designed to help strengthen public and policy support for investment in social care, promote greater respect for those who use care services and for care workers, and cultivate a shared public understanding of social care as a societal responsibility.

Led by Richard Brunner and Jen Wallace, the project page includes the underpinning evidence review, a discussion paper from care-related organisations across Scotland and further resources to help people craft a stronger story about adult social care in Scotland, why it matters and the lives it enables us all to lead together. The discussion paper in particular includes a series of practical examples of things we often say about social care (which typically don’t land well with our intended audience), showing how we could say the same thing in a different way to achieve different outcomes.

My favourite example of this, earlier in my career, was when there was an attempt in England to ban smoking in public places on the grounds that smoking is bad for you. Even people who agreed and didn’t smoke themselves initially felt uncomfortable about the government telling people what they could and couldn’t do on a night out, and the proposal was dropped. Later on, the same proposal came back – explained this time in terms of smoking being bad for low paid workers in the hospitality industry who had no choice but to breathe in your smoke. The exact same policy than passed with barely a whimper. When it was the ‘nanny state’ telling you what to do, we were against it; when it was a health and safety at work issue, we were perfectly OK with it. How things are framed matters and it influences how people respond.

In November 2025, we were delighted to deliver the opening keynote at Scottish Care’s ‘Raising the Roof’ care homes conference. Material from the reframing project was used in a Question Time event with the Minister and Shadow Spokespeople from across the political spectrum to explore how political leaders might approach adult social care and accompanying public debates in the forthcoming elections.

We’re also very grateful to the Rayne Foundation for providing additional funding to continue this work for a further 17 months – building on the success of the initial IMPACT Demonstrator and also helping Rayne to expand its work in social into other nations of the UK. Rayne have been running a ‘Better Careers for Better Care’ programme in England for the last year, and have now been able to support additional projects in Wales (with Social Care Wales) and in Scotland (with IMPACT).

Details of the learning and some forthcoming events from year 1 of the ‘Better Careers for Better Care’ programme are set out below – but our changing perceptions project and Rayne’s work might be linked in a key way: if we had a more positive and shared vision of what care and support is about and the lives we want to lead together, then we might place greater value on people who draw on care and support and on people who work in adult social care alike. That would make a better society and a better life for all of us.

For information:

The ‘Better Careers for Better Care’ programme is funded by the Rayne Foundation. In January 2026, Rayne has published the First Year Learning Report and is hosting a series of webinars to share learning from year one of the funded projects, including:

For details of IMPACT’s work on changing perceptions in Scotland, see https://impact.bham.ac.uk/delivery-models/demonstrators/public-perceptions-of-social-care/ and www.reframingcare.stir.ac.uk.