A school leaver who discovered his passion for caring by looking after his own grandad is celebrating completing an apprenticeship with Shropshire’s leading not-for-profit care provider.
Ben Morgan joined Coverage Care Services as an apprentice adult care worker straight from school at the age of 16.
It took just 16 months for him to successfully complete the Level 2 apprenticeship and kickstart his career in the care sector.
Ben, who celebrated his 18th birthday recently, is now happy to be working as a day care assistant at the company’s Woodcroft home in Market Drayton.
The young carer, who comes from a farming background, said he first discovered his passion for wanting to care for others after helping to look after his grandad.
He said: “I spent a lot of time looking after my grandad when he was living at home with us. He suffered with arthritis so couldn’t do things for himself very easily so I would often help and I really enjoyed supporting him.
“I think it was that experience that made me realise I was quite good at it and so I decided to look into the apprenticeship.
“I’ve been at Woodcroft throughout my apprenticeship and the best part of the job is ensuring the residents are cared for and that they have everything they need. I’m really happy to be staying on here and look forward to getting to know the residents better.”
Lea Fretwell, who works as a new recruit onboarder for Coverage Care Services, said Ben had all the attributes of a brilliant carer and had demonstrated a huge amount of passion for his work throughout the duration of his apprenticeship.
She said: “Ben had helped care for his granddad and because of that realised that some people need a huge level of care as they get older. He wanted to be able to help others in the same way as he’d helped his grandad.
“We’ve spoken about his longer-term career plans, and he said one day he’d like to go on and run his own care company and I think that is entirely achievable for Ben. He will go on to make a huge difference to people’s lives.
“He’s been such a pleasure to work with throughout his apprenticeship and we are delighted that he has decided to stay on with us as a care assistant.”
Coverage Care Services has run its apprenticeship programme successfully for many years with more than 70 apprentices graduating from the scheme – many of which are still employed by the organisation.
Sam Woosnam, the company’s HR director, said: “Our apprenticeship programme is one of our most valuable recruitment tools helping us to train young people with the right skills for the job and we would like to congratulate Ben for all his hard work and achieving his Level 2 qualification.
“Traditionally the programme has been used to help us nurture the next generation of care workers but more and more we are also seeing the benefits of apprenticeships for recruiting young people for a variety of other roles including administration and maintenance.”
Sam added: “All our apprentices are supported through their training by our new recruit onboarders. We developed these roles quite recently to support employees who have joined Coverage Care settle into and understand their role. They are proving an invaluable resource particularly as we attract more new recruits who do not have a background in the care industry.”
Coverage Care works in partnership with county provider SBC Training to deliver its apprenticeship programme.
Apprentices working at Coverage Care Services get paid significantly higher than the current £5.28 per hour national apprentice wage rate with many starting their apprenticeship on a rate of £7.35 per hour. The organisation offers all apprentices permanent employment at the start of their apprenticeship.
CAPTION: Ben at work at Woodcroft.
