The ‘New Recruits’ project is based on an identified skills need in the departments of the City of Gothenburg’s four social services for children and young people. The problem is a high staff turnover, many employees who are recent graduates and high workload. In addition, there are difficulties in finding a working structure for introduction, skills development and mentoring. The right skills development effort at the right time is an important prerequisite for being able to carry out the work in practice. The social services are a traditionally female-dominated workplace and we see a need to work more with gender mainstreaming. This needs to be done together with the university as the intake to the social work programmes reflects the quantitative distribution that we have in the social services. Another important issue is to work against all forms of discrimination, which of course is part of the legislation to which we are subject, but there is always a need to work more on the issue. All employees in our departments will be able to participate in the project, which is an important prerequisite. It is the skills needs of the individuals that will guide what efforts in the project are offered. In order to shorten the paths into the profession, we, together with the University of Gothenburg, have opened up for students attending the social work programme's seventh and final semester to be able to apply for positions in our children and young departments at 20%. Then we have an opportunity to give them training in software, difficult conversations and other special skills that will be needed to be able to work independently as a social worker. The project will primarily strengthen the individuals, our organization regarding how we structure and organize skills development efforts and introduction of new employees, as well as structurally around collaboration between our administrations and with external actors such as the Gothenburg Region's Association of Local Authorities (GR) and the University of Gothenburg (GU).