New learning and development opportunities for 2022

As the new year begins it’s the perfect time to start planning learning and development opportunities for your team to make use of this year.

Providing your team with ongoing learning and development can improve job satisfaction, make staff feel more valued, upskill your team, and as a result help you to keep staff for longer.

We’ve rounded up some of our core learning and development initiatives which are new or updated for 2022, as well as those which are calling for final applications at the start of the year.

Workforce Development Fund

The Workforce Development Fund (WDF) is funding from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) which is distributed by Skills for Care to support the ongoing professional development of the adult social care workforce.

The funding can be used towards the completion of a wide range of qualifications, learning programmes, and digital learning modules for staff at all levels.

This year the WDF will continue to provide enhanced funding for completion of leadership and management development opportunities.

All employers in England have access to the fund, whether it’s claiming via your local partnership, a national partnership, or directly from Skills for Care.

The deadline for submitting claims to Skills for Care for the 2021-22 funding has been extended to 31 May 2022.

Find out more about WDF and how to apply.

Leading Change, Improving Care

Leading Change, Improving Care is a practical leadership development programme for registered managers and other managers working across adult social care. The programme is delivered by a selection of Skills for Care’s endorsed providers.

The course is delivered though five interactive modules, which focus around leading, managing and building resilience for change; developing effective leadership skills; coaching and developing teams, and improving your own personal effectiveness.

The course typically takes around four months to complete and can be delivered flexibly.

Finding out more about reading Change Improving Care.

Forefront Programme

The Forefront Programme is a new suite of modules being supported by Skills for Care in 2022. The course is aimed at frontline adult social care staff from black, Asian and ethnic minorities and is intended to build participants’ confidence in improving equality, diversity and inclusion in their organisation while also developing leadership skills to help with career progression.

The course has been designed for frontline workers from black, Asian and ethnic minorities and those who face challenges in the workplace, and will cover topics including:

• an overview of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)
• discrimination
• promoting EDI within your organisation
• leadership and management
• personal branding
• communication skills
• career barriers and career progression.

More information will be available on our website and enews about this new programme in the coming weeks.

National Apprenticeships Week

National Apprenticeships Week takes place from Monday 7 February to Sunday 13 February 2022, so what better time to look at introducing apprenticeships into your organisation.

Offering apprenticeships among your existing staff or new staff allows you to upskill and bring new talent into your organisation to help you to continue to develop and improve the care and support you provide.

Bringing in new apprentices who can go on to become permanent employees can also help you to build a loyal workforce, while providing apprenticeship and mentoring opportunities among your existing staff can boost job satisfaction and support staff retention.

Apprenticeships provide your existing staff with the chance to upskill through participating in an apprenticeship of their own, or through mentoring and supporting new apprentices.

Find out more about national Apprenticeships Week.

Overview of the Care Certificate now available in British Sign Language

Translated into British Sign Language (BSL), an overview of each Care Certificate standard, along with an introduction to the Care Certificate is now available on our website. To make the content as accessible as possible, the videos also feature subtitles and a voiceover.

To assure the quality and accessibility of the videos, we worked in partnership with Royal Association for Deaf People who filmed and edited the content with their in-house team. We’d like to thank them for helping us with this project, and for advising us on how best to create content which is accessible for all.

The videos will be available on the Care Certificate section of our website in the coming weeks, with easy access and the ability to download and embed directly into other websites.

GO Online digital modules

Two new digital modules to help you achieve and demonstrate Good and Outstanding care standards will launch later this year.

The first module, ‘Being prepared for CQC inspection’ will look at a step-by-step approach to preparing for a Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection to effectively evidence you’re delivering Good or Outstanding care.

The second module, ‘Improving your CQC rating’ provides insight into practical ways to drive forward improvements after falling below CQC standards.

More information about the modules will be released on our website later this month.

Individual employer funding

There’s a variety of different funding options available which individual employers (IEs) can use to help support the development of their personal assistants (PAs).

This funding can be used by individual employers to provide training for your personal assistant to develop new skills, or to provide training for yourself that can help you to best manage your PA.

The funding can cover direct costs of training and qualifications, travel, and the cost of hiring replacement support whilst your usual PA is attending training.

The application deadline for this funding is 31 March 2022 and any training that you want to be funded must be started by 30 April 2022.

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

For more information and support to help you plan for 2022 see our #PrepareToCare22 blogs and articles.

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