Raising awareness of health and social care careers amongst ethnic minority young people and their advisors using an action research approach

This project aimed to investigate the reasons why applications to Health and Social Care (H&SC) programmes from Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) groups is low, and to attempt to address the problem, working with three colleges/schools. Qualitative (focus group n=7, reflective reports n=3) and quantitative (questionnaires n=239) data collection methods were employed. Triangulation of descriptive data showed lack of awareness of the H&SC professions by students and careers advisors. Careers advisors’ perception of barriers for these groups entering H&SC professions related to socio-cultural issues which were not borne out by the data collected from the BME communities