Staff Training
Full time staff have at least 5 days training time per year,(and part-time staff pro rata). These include topics & courses such as mental and physical health issues, procedures, (social) care, legislation & good practice and treatment techniques.
Care and non-care staff undertake the Care Certificate as part of their extensive induction to Sunny Bank PRS, if they have not previously worked in care. If they have already done this certificate, then any gaps (e.g. mental health knowledge) will be covered.
Staff also receive mandatory training. QCF qualifications are encouraged and all care/support staff currently hold or are working towards QCF/NVQ qualifications in Social Care with the majority being Level 3 and the others Level 2.
All staff are actively involved in staff meetings, Sunny Bank PRS’s own seven-weekly client care/support review process, and the in service training programme, as well as their own monthly "Individual Learning Time" sessions.
Staff training periods at Sunny Bank run from the beginning of April each year to the end of March the following year. At the beginning of each training year a senior member of staff will hold a meeting with each employee to identify and prioritise which topics/courses should be undertaken or refreshed according to their training needs.
Mandatory Courses
The following mandatory courses are undertaken by all members of staff and are refreshed either yearly or 3 yearly depending on legislation / guidance: -
- Safeguarding adults
- Safeguarding Young People
- Mental Capacity and DOLS
- Medication (Foundation and Advanced)
- Oliver McGowan Learning Difficulty and Autism Training
- Manual Handling
- Health and Safety in the workplace
- Fire Training
- First Aid
- Food Safety and Catering
- Person Centred Care
- Consent
- Dignity
- Equality & Diversity
- Infection Control
- Record Keeping
Independent Learning Time
Each month staff are allocated time (usually 2 to 3 hours) within their shifts to study different topics from our Learning Time Boxes.
Each box will contain various reference materials in the form of DVDs, articles, books, web sources, etc., which staff can study at their own pace. The time can also be used for e-learning and workbooks for both mandatory courses and special interest topics (e.g. autism). For example over the last 2 years this has included: -
- Nutrition
- Alcoholism
- Anxiety/Phobias
- Autism Awareness Booklet
- Huntington's Disease
- Legionella & Legionnaires Disease Awareness
- LGBTQ+ Awareness
- Guide To Dysphagia
- Oral Hygiene
- Pat Testing
- React To Red
- Restore2 Mini Training
- Sepsis
- Staff Wellbeing & Resilience
- End Of Life Care
- The Care Certificate
- Needlestick Injury
- Mental Capacity Act 2005 & Depravation Of Liberty Safeguards
- Medication Competency
- Infection Control
Internal Staff Training Meetings
Internal Staff Training Meetings are held at Sunny Bank for all available staff every 7 weeks. They will be presented either by a senior member of staff or by an external speaker and will cover a number of different topics. For example: -
- Promoting Health & Wellbeing (run alongside client training as well)
- Fire Training
- Huntington's Disease
- Fire training
- Diabetes
- Professional Boundaries Training
- Schizophrenia and Psychosis
- Equality and Diversity
- Dementia Awareness
External Courses
All members of staff at Sunny Bank are given the opportunity to further their training development by attending external courses where appropriate and available.
We have used a number of different organizations / training providers for these courses such as; Bury Adult Care Training Partnership, Mindfields, Age Concern, Skills Development Service, Primary Care Training Group, SITRA and Business Solutions, First 4 Health, St John's Ambulance, Creative Support, Social Care TV, High Speed Training, Compliance Training Ltd and Skills for Care.
Webinars
This is an area that has considerably developed over the last couple of years, especially as training / guidance for Managers.
We have participated in webinars delivered by the CQC, Skills for Care, Greater Manchester Directors of Public Health Group about Infection Control and ones by the Department for Health & Social Care about Infection Control, COVID testing, vaccinations etc., & Citation / Croner around employment law changes.
