We love learning and our adult social care education strategy focuses on making sure we provide high-quality training and development opportunities for professionals working in the sector.
Providing high quality training ensures our social care workers have the knowledge and skills they need to better support the people they care for.
Our training programmes are aligned with the post qualifying standards set by Social Work England and ensures compliance with the Care Act.
This year we have run the following activities:
- introduction to supervision skills
- post qualifying standards for supervision
- leadership programme
- responding to complaints - Ombudsman training
- working with risk - a master class
We’ve delivered some of the following activities this year:
- Post-qualifying standards for social work supervisors in adult social care
- This is an employer-led programme of support and assessment against the post-qualification standards. The aim is to develop national consistency in supervision practice and knowledge.
- Leadership programme which has been developed in collaboration with the education service leads. The programme is in its second year and continues to provide assurance that the joint education strategy is aligned to and meets the NHS People Plan priorities. Topics include:
- Introduction to leadership and management. Understanding yourself, coaching skills, managing people/difficult conversations, managing through change and reflection – Personal Development Plan.
- We delivered a seminar about trauma-informed practice and defensible decision-making to around 70 members of staff. Transition and sensory team – specialist training; dual sensory loss; dementia and sight loss; rehabilitation and visual impairment; low vision therapy and British Sign Language course. We have delivered this course and have managed to secure additional funding for 2024 from NHS England to support our staff to identify different types of dementia and understanding common sight issues found in people with dementia.
The bite-size education programme has been designed to support staff to enhance their professional practice to develop new and existing skills by using a strengths-based approach. Furthermore, the multiple pathways available aims to support individuals to understand the legal framework for the provision of care and support services to older people, including people with a disability and their carers, plus safeguarding vulnerable adults from abuse and neglect.
Domestic violence and abuse
Training to provide a universal response aims to give staff a basic understanding of the dynamics of domestic violence and abuse and its links to mental health and alcohol and drug misuse, along with their legal duties.
Legal literacy seminars/workshops
We have invested and developed a new pathway following a number of successful seminars from some of the country’s leading professionals.
- Customer service training - NHS Elect
- Oliver McGowen Mandatory Training - to support our staff to understand and work with people with autism
- Due to the numbers of health and care staff in Devon – estimated 40,000 NHS staff and 22,000 care sector staff – it was agreed to start the programme with a pilot project.
- Ombudsman complaints and Investigation training.