Training and development

From day one, every member of our team joins our online Workplace community. This enables you to communicate with colleagues, share experiences and advice, find help and information, read policies and procedures and even participate in online meetings and video calls. It's a great way of connecting everybody across our team and ensures you always have information at your finger tips.

There are times when we all need help or advice quickly, however experienced or well trained we may be. To ensure you have 24/7 local support on-hand, each of our local care management teams operates a 24/7 local on-call service which you can call.

Our local care management team provides weekly support visits to our live-in carers, either in-person or over the phone. This helps ensure that the care package is working well, you are fully supported and any existing or potential issues are discussed.

We know that the first few weeks of any new job is often the most challenging so we will arrange two review phone calls with you during your first week of work and another within 4 weeks. This helps us ensure that any issues or concerns are addressed and that you are settling into the team.

You will receive a supervision meeting with your named supervisor every 12 weeks (3 months). These meetings present a great opportunity to celebrate your achievements and address any issues, discuss learning and development opportunities and ensure that you're happy and confident in your role.

You will also have an annual appraisal meeting with your Registered Branch Manager. This meeting is a formal process to review your performance in your role and set goals to help you progress.

The people we care for at home may be living with a specialist condition and we understand that this requires you to feel competent and trained in how to provide them with outstanding care and support.

We have therefore developed a selection of training courses in partnership with leading organisations in their respective fields to support you to develop your knowledge and skills for specialist care. This includes end of life care, Motor Neurone Disease (MND) care, Parkinson's care and stroke care.

We will support and pay you to complete this training so you can truly provide specialist care to your clients.

The first step of progressing your career journey with us is to complete your Level 2 Diploma in health and social care.

This qualification will support you to develop the skills and knowledge needed to provide frontline care for vulnerable adults in a wide range of settings in the adult social care sector.

Once you have completed your Level 2 Diploma, the next step of progressing your career journey with us is to complete your Level 3 Diploma in health and social care.

This qualification will support you to take your skills and knowledge to the next level and learn about the provision, planning and review of holistic care needs for individuals in receipt of care. It also covers supporting other care / support staff in the development of their practice and providing guidance and support to them, ensuring the delivery of positive outcomes to those in receipt of care.

Once you have completed your Level 3 Diploma with us you will be able to access our Champions for Home Care (CHAMPs) course and take another step forward in your career path with us.

Our CHAMPs course allows experienced team members to develop clinical and management skills and adheres to many aspects of a registered nursing course. It qualifies you to work collaboratively alongside other professionals and take on additional responsibilities. It is designed for experienced carers to enable them to be more proactive and holistic in their care to meet the ever increasing needs of individuals at home. It also enables Carefound Home Care to offer enhanced services and allows a new career pathway for people within the organisation.

Once you have completed your Level 3 Diploma, you can also progress your career with us by completing your Level 4 Diploma in health and social care.

This qualification will enable you to have a greater depth of knowledge and expertise of particular conditions being experienced by clients and to develop specialist skills and knowledge, allowing you to lead in areas such as care needs assessment. You will also learn how to coach and mentor others and assess performance and quality of care delivery.

Once you have completed your Level 4 Diploma, the next step of progressing your career journey with us is to complete your Level 5 Diploma in health and social care.

This qualification is for people who have / will have responsibility for managing services, such as a registered manager, deputy manager or care manager. This will include a large element of leadership, whether with other care workers and networks or in leading the service itself. This apprenticeship supports the development of the knowledge, skills, and behaviours for you to be confident in your ability to be responsible for this, including ensuring regulatory compliance of the care given and the values and training of staff with established standards and regulations.

The Lead to Succeed programme has been developed by Skills for Care in response to an identified need within the sector to up-skill existing managers and provide a pathway to develop aspiring managers in adult social care.

The programme covers five key areas over five days (usually with two or three weeks between sessions to allow action plans to be developed and put the learning into practice).

The programme is designed for care managers wishing to refresh their skills, supervisors, team leaders, nursing staff, deputy managers, senior staff and aspiring and new managers.