Care provider shares how staff have grown into new roles with them

Care provider David Lewis told us how their learning and development opportunities have encouraged staff to stay with them long-term. We spoke to two of their team about how they’ve developed in the organisation.

Becci Peart, Social Work Manager, David Lewis

Becci has been with David Lewis for 20 years, and in that time she’s had the opportunity to progress into many different roles. She started out as a care officer before moving on to be a trainer and is now a social work manager.

Before joining David Lewis, Becci had worked in the pub industry as a pub manager and decided she needed a change so applied to work at David Lewis supporting children with learning disabilities and autism as a care officer in one of their children's houses. In time, Becci progressed onto the role of team leader and was then approached to take on the role of a trainer.

After being trained up as trainer, Becci started in her new role which she did for around 18 months, alongside her role as team leader before she was ready to take her next step. She was considering moving into either midwifery or social work, when fortunately, a maternity cover for a social work assistant role became available at David Lewis.

When the maternity post came to an end, Becci was asked to stay on in the social work team and the organisation funded her to undertake a degree in social work while also working full-time.

After receiving her degree, the role of manager within the social work team opened up and Becci was asked to step in to build up the department and take it forward, which is what she’s done over the last eight years.

She says:

Nick Bonnington, Trainer, David Lewis

Nick has been working at David Lewis for almost seven years. He joined the organisation in his first role in social care, having previously worked as a taxi driver and chef.

He first joined David Lewis as a care worker, and he tells us that he knew from day one of his induction training exactly how he wanted to stay and progress at the organisation. He wanted to become a trainer.

With this in mind, Nick threw himself into his role and took on every learning and development opportunity available to help him grow towards the role of trainer. He helped out as much as possible with training opportunities and made his name known among the department.

Nick’s line manager at the time knew that he was interested in progressing into the training role and provided him with opportunities to work closely with the department, including leading a presentation.

After that an opportunity came up to support the training team to deliver their positive behavioural management training sessions, and Nick was supported in taking on that task– including undergoing a course in positive behavioural management.

Other training that Nick has received while working at David Lewis includes his NVQ3 in Health and Social Care and training around disability and autism awareness.

In 2021 a full-time position within the training team became available, and with his existing experience of delivering some training sessions Nick applied for the role and was successful.

In his role as trainer Nick can appreciate not only how the learning and development opportunities he received in his earlier career with David Lewis helped him to progress, but also gets to see and deliver the variety of training the whole team receives and the impact that this has on staff.

Nick is now undertaking his Level 5 diploma in teaching and training at Macclesfield College, which is being funded by the organisation.

Talking about the learning and progression opportunities he’s had Nick says:

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