Funding to support learning and development for individual employers and personal assistants

Find out more about funded learning and development options available to support individual employers and personal assistants.

Ongoing learning and development is important for every worker. This includes personal assistants who provide care and support to individual employers.

By providing ongoing learning and development to the people who support you, you can ensure they stay up-to-date with best practice and you can also tailor their learning and development so they can learn more about specialist areas which are important in best supporting you.

For example, this might include nutrition management, massage therapy, or mental health awareness. You can find examples of how individual employers have provided learning and development for their team with our case studies.

As an individual employer it’s also useful to take on your own learning and development to help you to best lead your team. For example, training around communication, leadership skills, or conducting supervisions.

Of course, training can come at a cost and that’s why there’s funding available to support individual employers to cover some of the cost of learning and development for themselves or their teams.

Individual employer funding

This funding can be used to cover training costs either for yourself or for your staff. The funding can be used to cover the direct costs of any training or qualifications, and it can also be used to cover related costs, such as the costs of hiring replacement support while your personal assistant is attending training or the travel costs of attending training.

The funding is available if you employ your own care and support through a personal budget from social care or health or by using your own money.

For this year’s funding, applications need to be made by Friday 31 March 2023 at 5pm and training must have started by 30 April.

Find out more about individual employer funding and how to apply.

User led organisation funding

User led organisations (ULOs) are organisations which are run by and controlled by people who draw on care and support and provide a network and various types of activity and support for others who draw on care and support.

Each year Skills for Care provides grants to ULOs to allow them to provide training sessions for individual employers and personal assistants.

All individual employers and personal assistants can book onto these training sessions in your local area. This year we have 19 organisations who have received funding to deliver a range of training courses and we want as many people as possible to make use of this training.

Find out about the training being offered in your area and how to book your place.

Follow our current campaign on social media using #KeepLearning where we’ll be sharing advice and guidance for everyone working in social care or visit our campaign landing page. Find dedicated support on our Information hub for individual employers and personal assistants.

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