Care Academy Blog

Towards Maturity is an independent, not for profit organisation with a passion for helping others to improve the impact of learning technologies at  work. The site provides access to a wide range of useful research, resources and case studies aimed at helping individuals and organisations wishing to introduce technology into their learning strategies.

Not surprisingly, the most popular download from the site is: 'What every L&D professional needs to know about e-learning' which is described as follows;

'The free 20-page booklet, helps trainers to understand just how extraordinary the opportunities are for improving the impact, accessibility, flexibility, timeliness, cost-effectiveness and environmental friendliness of learning and development interventions. And most importantly of all, it shows trainers how they can play a vital role in bringing this all about.'

We think everyone will find the site really useful and the booklet provides a good insight into how different organisations are integrating technology into their business.

Care Academy is pleased to announce the launch of our latest course, 'Understanding Challenging Behaviour in Care' which whilst being important in it's own right, is perfectly timed to compliment our Level 2 Dementia course.

Given the estimate that some 70% of people living with dementia will exhibit some form of challenging behaviour during their lifetime, it will come as no surprise to discover that it's a subject high on many care providers agenda.

Challenging Behaviour is a complex subject, so it's reassuring to know that our course meets the requirements of Skills for Care Induction Standards, with the key learning outcomes being:

• Explain what challenging behaviour is and possible reasons for it occurring. 
• List the different types of challenging or aggressive behaviour.
• Understand how to manage challenging/aggressive behaviour.
• Understand the importance of your own personal safety when working alone.
• Describe how to identify the risks and how to apply risk assessment procedures to your work.

To find out more about Care Academy please call 0161 228 1712 or contact us via our online form.

The governments first national dementia strategy; 'Living well with Dementia: A National Dementia Strategy' is intended to introduce a structured universal framework for the awareness, training and associated care provision across the health and social care sectors.

The document makes stark reading, with the 700,000 people currently living with dementia set to double within our lifetime to 1.4 million and in doing so, costing the UK economy around £17 billion a year.

The strategy identifies some 17 key objectives, the most pertinent here being:

Objective 11: Living well with dementia in care homes

Improved quality of care for people with dementia in care homes by the development of explicit leadership for dementia within care homes, defining the care pathway there, the commissioning of specialist in-reach services from community mental health teams, and through inspection regimes.

Objective 13: An informed and effective workforce for people with dementia

Health and social care staff involved in the care of people who may have dementia to have the necessary skills to provide the best quality of care in the roles and settings where they work. To be achieved by effective basic training and continuous professional and vocational development in dementia.

Clearly, purchaser's and commissioners will be expecting to see evidence of care providers ability and committment  to delivering against these objective's. Specifically, two areas are worthy of particular note:

• Home care: with two thirds of dementia sufferers living at home, specialist dementia teams are likely to be in high demand.

• Residential care: Similarly, it is estimated that some two thirds of people living in care homes will have dementia. Again, care staff will be required to receive specialist dementia training.

In response to these development's, Care Academy has developed a level 2 Dementia course that not only meets the Skills for Care knowledge sets but has also been cross referenced against the recently released QCF dementia units.

Skills for Care knowledge sets for dementia can be found here: Skills for Care.

By mapping our Dementia course to the proposed QCF units, candidates can be totally confident about it's accuracy and they will also be able to progress onto the full certificated qualification once details have been ratified by Skills for Care.

To find out more about Care Academy please call 0161 228 1712 or contact us via our online form.