Care Academy Blog

Friday, December 03, 2010

Care Academy is pleased to announce that we are currently developing the UK's first fully online City & Guilds accredited Dementia Qualification which will be available from January 2011.

The Level 2 Award in Awareness in Dementia Care is made up of 4 mandatory units:

1. Dementia awareness
2. The person centred approach to the care and support of individuals with dementia
3. Understand the factors that can influence communication and interaction with individuals who have dementia
4. Understand equality, diversity and inclusion in dementia care.

Notably, the Level 2 Award will count as 8 credits towards the new Health and Social Care Level 2 Diploma (the NVQ replacement) forming a key component of the new Dementia Pathway.

Currently 700,000 people in the UK have dementia and this figure is expected to double over the next few decades.

The qualification in awareness of dementia is aimed at occupational areas across all service user groups and ages, working in statutory (including NHS), private and voluntary agencies. This also includes healthcare/care assistants, support/key workers, family support workers and team leaders/first line supervisors.

Additionally, it's been confirmed that the Dementia Award will be eligible for TSI funding until 2011 at a rate of £80.00 per unit (That's £320.00 in total!) - so it's advisable to get your registrations in early!

To discuss how Care Academy can help your organisation please contact us on 0161 228 1712 or via our online form form.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The much lauded personalised Skills Accounts have moved beyond their trial period and are now available online.

The accounts have been developed to enable individuals to learn a new skill or even completely change their career direction. They are available to all individuals and upon registration, learners will be provided with a 'notional' fund to help pay for additional training.

Skills Accounts are an integral part of the new Adult Advancement and Careers Service (AACS). Over time, the online portal will become more closely integrated and aligned with other information and services delivered through Directgov (e.g. Careers Advice).

Currently restricted to the education sector, Skills Accounts are expected to encompass all training providers over the next few months.

It will be interesting to see how care provider's, trainer's and individuals make sense of the current 'shake-up' in funding streams over the next 12 months or so and whether Skills Accounts actually make a difference!

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has issued the latest in a series of 'Guidance Notes' designed to communicate changes (primarily in funding) to the sector.

Not surprisingly it contains a few points worth noting:

• During 2010/11 the SFA will be introducing a minimum contract level of £250,000. Providers who fall below this threshold will be encouraged to form partnerships and sub-contract work accordingly.
• Where applicable, employer contributions will increase from 47.5% to 50%.
• Large employers (1000+ employees) will see an up front 25% rate reduction for all 19+ learners on Train to Gain and Apprenticeships. Both public and private sector organisations will be included along with any provision delivered through National Employer Service (NES).
• 50% reduction in funding for any second qualification including both level 2 and level 3.

It appears that the continued financial pressures on training providers who depend on a 'funded' business model are set to increase and perhaps that is part of the reason we are seeing many small companies either folding or 'for sale'. It will be interesting to understand the framework within which the proposed 'partnerships' will operate, although details are scarce at present.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Keeping up to date with regulatory and compliance training is never easy let alone cheap!

The cost of traditional classroom based training is often compounded by fairly high levels of staff turnover, resulting in significant recurring cost's such as trainers, classrooms, travel and resources.

Even before the economy slipped into recession, many organisations were looking for ways to ensure maximum value from their training budgets, whilst ensuring compliance with CSCI (Commission for Social Care Inspection) audits.

After talking with some of our clients, we identified two common problems;

1. Difficulty in forecasting exact number of staff requiring training, especially across multiple sectors such as older people, children and learning disability services.
2. Investing in staff development only to see key personnel move on soon afterwards.

In order to address these key issues, Care Academy has taken the bold step of introducing two new pricing models.

Learning Pathway 1 - Induction

Under this innovative pricing model, customers can purchase access to all Care Academy Induction programmes under a single licence fee. Once agreed, clients are then free to 'mix and match' employees to the appropriate training programme. This concept provides customers with maximum flexibility and the opportunity to respond to the changing needs of the organisation without incurring further cost.

Current induction programmes available within Learning Pathways include:Common Induction Standards (CIS), Childrens Workforce Development Council (CWDC), Learning Disability Qualification - Induction Award (LDQ-IA) to name but a few.

Learn Now - Certify Later

From April 2009 we are offering Learning Disability Qualification - Induction Award customers the opportunity to split both the learning content and certification. This means you can register staff on a dedicated LDQ-IA learning programme without registering (and paying) for the full certified qualification.

This provides a number of benefits including:

1. Clients can demonstrate to CSCI and other regulatory bodies a commitment to providing appropriate regulatory training.
2. Clients can choose to pay for the full certifcation at a later date when they are confident of the candidate suitability and commitment.

This is great news for learning disability services in particular, who can now take a significant step towards meeting their regulatory training requirements without incurring significant upfront expense.

To find out more about these offers please contact us on 0161 228 1712 or via the online form

Care Academy is currently running a pilot programme with Lancashire Workforce Development Partnership to provide funded places to qualifying members on our unique Learning Disability Qualification - Induction Award (LDQ-IA) programme. As a fully accredited City and Guilds centre, Care Academy is able to offer the UK's only fully online LDQ-IA.

Following the successful launch of the pilot, we still have a very small number of funded places available, so please get in touch if you wish to discuss this offer.

We are also in discussion with many similar funding partners throughout the UK, so please contact us to register your interest and we will keep you up to date as funding opportunities become available.

Despite the fact that Training Strategy Implementation (TSI) funding has been available for some time, here at Care Academy we are still surprised that some organisations are still missing out on claiming around £75 per completed induction!

Whilst the reasons may well be many and varied, a common problem appears to be that often the responsibility for processing the claim is not centralised, rather it is the responsibility of managers and staff to complete and process the necessary paperwork. Hardly surprising then that this is often overlooked and vital funding is not claimed!

In order to address this problem, Care Academy has recently introduced an automated TSI funding feature within our system. This ensures that TSI forms are generated automatically upon completion of the induction and signed 'electronically' by the individual. This not only reduces the burden of administration but also ensures no missed funding opportunities. In fact, we recently demonstrated to one client that by using our system to centralise and claim all the funds they were entitled to the system would pay for itself within the first year and provide additional funds to support other training activities!

Our system has been approved by Skills for Care and should provide a welcome relief to over - worked staff.

To find out more about our TSI funding technology please contact us on 0161 228 1712 or via the online form.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Skills for Care have launched the first ever comprehensive online guide to resources and funding for social care, with directions and help for social care employees in relation to funding for staff development.

This guide has been developed because within social care there is no single source of funding support for workforce development, education, training or assessment. Due to this some organisations miss out on funding opportunities which could help improve the training of their staff.

The guide has been designed to be easy to use by focusing on national funding sections and then dividing these into a regional contact list for local sources of funding. Furthermore, the guide will be continually refreshed to ensure all information is up-to-date with Skills for Care making a hard copy available form the end of January 2009 complete with contact telephone numbers for each entry.

Skills for Care CEO Andrea Rowe said:

"There’s no doubt many employers do find the often dizzying array of funding sources an obstacle to seeking money to train their staff which is exactly why we’ve produced this easy to use guide,"

"For the very first time we have brought together the wide array of resources and funding opportunities nationally and regionally into one easy to use online guide as we want every one of the 38,000 social care employers to be able to more easily access resources to support the development of their staff."

"If we are serious about making sure that every one of 1.5 million social care workers can access high quality training then we must make sure that employers can access resources and funding as easily as possible to make that aspiration a reality."

The resources and funding guide which can be accessed here.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Changes in the funding regulations for care training will be introduced in 2009. These changes, which will affect many different sectors of care, include funding from Train to Gain to improve carer’s access to training when and where carers need it, regardless of their previous training and qualifications. The changes include:

• Stand-alone accredited training modules and part-qualifications in essential areas like business systems, communications, sales and marketing, information technology, customer service, new product design, finance and credit, cash flow and profit management, and risk management;
• Fully funded Level 2 qualifications and subsidised level 3 qualifications, regardless of whether the employee already has a qualification at this level.

                                                                                                                    

The government are making £157m available to local authorities in England for 2009-10 through the Disabled Facilities Grant Programme, Housing Minister Baroness Andrews announced this week.

The Disabled Facilities Grant Programme helps around 37,000 disabled and older people each year to live as comfortably and independently as possible in their own homes, and has seen successive increases in funding in recent years increasing from £57million in 1997 to £146million in 2008-09.

Housing Minister Baroness Andrews said:

"This funding provides a lifeline to thousands of disabled and older people across the country, which is why we have increased the grant again this year."

"Providing something as simple as a ramp can really make the difference between being able to stay in your home and having to leave and this is exactly how the Disabled Facilities Grant helps - it gives people the opportunity to stay in their homes and communities, near friends and family."

The allocations to each local authority can be found in detail on the CLG website.