Learning At Work Week: What Carers’ Training Looks Like

Thinking of switching to a career in care and wondering how carers are trained? In this post we pull back the curtain on our approach to carers’ training.

With Learning At Work Week taking place this year between 16^th and 22^nd May, we thought this was the perfect time to explain some of the essential skills you’ll learn when you become a Bluebird and take our care assistant induction.

What does care assistant training involve?

“We spent a lot of time and care putting together our our care assistant induction,” explains Bluebird Care Gosport deputy manager Katy Wood.

“When care assistants start with us we run a full classroom-based three-day carer course that incorporates some practical aspects and some theory. It’s delivered to in small groups, so carers can share their experiences, which really helps to build that feeling of a team from day one.”

So… exactly what training do carers need?

How are carers trained at Bluebird Care?

“Our care assistant induction covers a variety of things,” explains Katy. They include:

• An induction to Bluebird Care
• Medication
• Moving and handling
• Basic life support
• Care notes
• Operating the system we use for logging care notes
• Our policies and procedures
• Plus sharing as much knowledge as we can about completing care visits.

In every area of the training, empathy plays a huge part.

“Take the moving and assisting module,” says Katy. “That’s hands-on. For instance, our care assistants go out in the community actually sat in a wheelchair to understand what it’s like for people who may be in a wheelchair and struggling on a bad day.

“Care assistants on our carer course will also be rolled in bed and hoisted out of bed to make sure they understand how potentially vulnerable a customer may feel when they’re experiencing that and where the potential discomfort may be.

Hoisting is not always a pleasant experience – it may be quite tight. So we feel it’s important our carer training teaches our team how it feels, and how to do it properly. If you’re being lifted out of bed and you’ve got poor mobility, you’ve got no control over that. The more our carers know how that feels, the more understanding they’ll be towards our customers.”

“Always training”

“We run training every month with new starters,” says Katy. It’s worked really well. We alternate it between myself and Shirley, our head of care and compliance, so our carers get to enjoy two slightly different training styles.

“One thing we don’t do is a lot of theory-based assessment in that environment,” continues Katy. “We’ve found completing a quiz on paper isn’t reflective of people’s understanding, so when we want to assess carers understanding we’ll film them – for instance, hoisting someone out of bed. Then we can look back at it with them and make sure they understand what they should be doing.

“The one exception on the theory is medication, where there is a small theory aspect,” she continues. “However, it’s nothing that we wouldn’t be able to assist someone with to make sure they’ve got the learning they need before we let them move into shadowing.”

“Our existing team also have to have an annual refresher of every practical in-house training,” continues Katy. “So when they start they have the three-day induction, then they go and complete shadowing care visits, before coming back in each year for those refreshers. So in a sense, we’re always training!”

Away from the classroom

In addition to our classroom-based training, we also offer carer training courses online as part of our e-learning platform. “It has to be completed through the new starter and following probation periods, with seven modules to go through including the care certificate qualification. It’s done on an online portal that’s incredibly easy to use – we haven’t had anyone raise any concerns. It gives further detail to follow on from the practical training, so it’s very useful carer training that all of our carers also have to complete annually."

For Katy, however, the learning really shifts up a gear when our carers’ training moves from the classroom to customers’ living rooms.

“That’s when our new carers go out and complete shadow shifts with confident care assistants who have been with the business a certain period of time, and customers who are comfortable with us sending shadow visits. Shadowing is that last step to make sure our carers feel comfortable before they go on care visits themselves. All of them tell us it’s an invaluable part of our Bluebird carers’ training.

Do care workers get paid for training?

Another important aspect of our induction carer course is the fact it is remunerated. “Our probation periods are twelve weeks, after which our new carers get an end probation bonus for their training and e-learning,” says Katy. “It’s a generous sum that we want to give to our team as recognition for sticking at it, progressing, and making sure that once they’re competent, they continue providing that care to our customers.”

Curious about a career in care?

At Bluebird Care Gosport we’re always on the lookout for kind, caring people to join us on our monthly training sessions and move towards a career in home care.

“We’ve had such good feedback about our care assistant induction,” says Katy. “It’s designed to put our carers in our customers’ shoes and our team love it. If you’re a new starter, we’re sure you will too!”

If that’s you, get in touch with us to find out more. Alternatively, check out our current Gosport care jobs at the Bluebird Care Gosport careers page.

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