Cambridgeshire County Council. Adult Social Care Workforce Development. Strategy for Individual Employers and Personal Assistants

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1 Cambridgeshire County Council Adult Social Care Workforce Development Strategy for Individual Employers and Personal Assistants 1.0 Context 1.1 The Department of Health in its framework Working for personalised care, 2011 recognised the importance of training and development needs of individual employers and Personal Assistants (PA) working for individual employers. Research quoted in this document states that PAs give lack of learning and development opportunities as a key reason for leaving the role. 1.2 The research also found a lack of resources available specifically for the PA role, with qualifications in health and social care focused on the traditional model of care delivery. Together with a tension in training needs, caused by the needs of the individual employer requirements, this has led to the role of a PA being considered casual, transient, low skilled and part time rather than as a challenging and rewarding career choice, (DH, 2011). 1.3 Commitment was made by the Department of Health to develop consistency of support and funding for individual employers and PAs; to commission Skills for Care, (SfC), to ensure qualifications and induction standards, provide guidelines for PAs; a need to encourage creativity and innovative responses. 2.0 Emerging Trends 2.1 Since the publication of the framework above Skills for Care has developed a range of information, guidance and resources to support both the individual employer and those working for them in the PA role. In March 2015 it published its own research into how local authorities are supporting development of the PA role. They discovered most local authorities were providing some support, with the majority focused on the initial stages of becoming an individual employer and the recruitment and employment of PAs. 2.2 Eighty percent of local authorities were providing some form of support to enable PAs to access learning and development. However what was Jan 2016 Page 1

2 being provided was varied and ranged from signposting to bespoke packages of training to working with support organisations mostly local user led organisations. Specific training for PAs continued to be a gap in provision generally. 2.3 Clearly with the introduction of the Care Act, April 2015 now putting personal budgets into law for the first time, local authorities have an increased responsibility towards supporting individual employers and the development of the PA role. This is strengthened by Skills for Care report The size and structure of the adult social care sector and workforce in England The document identifies that direct payment recipients were the fastest growing employment sector in adult social care, accounting for 36% of the new jobs created during the last five years. 2.4 Through implementation of the Transforming Lives Strategy there are several areas ways Cambridgeshire County Council fulfils it obligations towards individual employers: Through its information and guidance channels, Working with partnership boards Commissioning of other organisations to support them in doing this such as Penderels Trust, the current contracted Direct Payment Support Organisation, (DPSO), and Cambridgeshire Alliance for Independent Living, (CAIL), a local user led organisation. Making available its adult social care training and development opportunities to PA s. 3.0 Current Offer 3.1 The Workforce Development Team until recently met on a regular basis with individual employers and representatives from local user led organisations. This work was based on established links created in early work developing a toolkit to support individual employers with employing their own staff. The group provided an understanding of this new way of receiving social care. Importantly it was an opportunity for individual employers to gain an understanding about social care best practice and opportunities available to support them and their PAs. This was both nationally and locally through the team s training offer to its statutory, private, voluntary and independent commissioned services. To date this has been provided free. 3.2 Initial concerns about being able to manage the expectations of this emerging market were unfounded as the number of individual employers Jan 2016 Page 2

3 taking up the offer of free training places has been minimal. Several attempts to try and understand why have been carried out, with the latest conducted September and October 2015 via an on-line survey. Despite a wide circulation and promotion only 13 people took part with varied responses. However most people felt their PAs currently had the necessary knowledge and skills to provide the support needed and that the individual employer had a good understanding of what training was needed. There were no clear outcomes about people taking up statutory and mandatory social care training, perhaps caused by a lack of understanding of what that is for the PA role. This was backed up by a number commenting on no advice being available on this. Nearly 55% were not sure what training was available through the Workforce Development Team, with nearly 60% not being aware of funding available through Skills for Care. However, only 30% of respondents had not received any statutory training, with nearly 62% receiving Safeguarding and Assisting People to Move. This was closely followed by Medication Management and Health and Safety and First Aid. The majority of respondents gave the local authority as the place to contact if training support and development was needed, although 30% ticked the other option. 3.3 A number of people took up the opportunity of providing more information. Generally this was around the confusion individual employers feel in trying to understand what their responsibilities are, who to go to for advice and support and where to obtain the training and development they need. Cost of course was another issue commented on, along with PA time needed away from service user. However a question about how much individual employers would be prepared to pay resulted in nearly 70% saying they would be prepared to pay ( 30%- 35 nearly 25% - 50). 4.0 Future Offer 4.1 The survey has provided evidence about priorities for the Workforce Development Team. This is valuable at a time when austerity measures require local authorities to prioritise activities and change working practices to ensure maximum results for minimum expenditure. To ensure that the Workforce Development Team also meets statutory responsibility, as per the towards supporting individual employers and the development of the PA role the ADASS Advice note for local authorities Minimum standards of support for individual employers and personal assistants has been used a supporting framework. See Appendix One. Jan 2016 Page 3

4 4.2 The following table sets out the Workforce Development Teams future offer: Jan 2016 Page 4

5 Priorities What will be achieved How will this be achieved Level 1 Workforce Development information, advice and guidance (ADASS Standard 5,6,9 ) 1. Promote the Individual Employer fund and registering PAs on the NMDS-SC 2. Promote national information, advice and guidance e.g. Skills for Care Information Hub for Individual Employers and PA s: ( 3. Provide links to the local social care training offer which will be charged at minimum cost, best practice quality 4. Provide links to local services, advice and support networks, e.g. Penderels/contracted DPSS and CAIL/other user led organisations 5. Ensure information is accessible for those with diverse needs 6. Use local partnership boards to promote information, advice and guidance 7. Advertise Learn Together Cambridgeshire in Carers Magazine Work with other partners and organisations as necessary to ensure this opportunity is maximised and promote through Learn Together Cambridgeshire Through dedicated direct employer and PA pages on Learn Together Cambridgeshire Ensure facilitators of the Partnership Boards have relevant information to be shared and promoted with its members Provide a regular feature to Carers Magazine editor Level 2 Initiatives for individual employers 1. Develop a greater understanding of individual employer needs and how to effectively ensure information is accessed by them Through links with local direct employer organisations e.g. (DPSOs); (CAIL); use of locally development surveys/request formations; established CCC services working with IE s; e- Jan 2016 Page 5

6 (ADASS Standard 1,2,4,5,8) Level 3 Initiatives for Personal Assistants (ADASS Standard 3,5,7) 2. Support the development of responses to the above which may highlight the need for Being a better employer type workshops/training 3. Promote Safeguarding training available to individual employers to ensure positive responses to risk 4. Work with others to develop a programme to support those interested in becoming an individual employer 5. Develop recruitment initiatives for PAs in the local social care workforce 6. Ensure the professional social care workforce continues to be up to date in the assessment and provision of direct payments 1. Promote the relevance and take up of vocational qualifications and apprenticeships for personal assistants 2. Develop the local offer for increasing PA specific development opportunities e.g. PA Care Certificate, Employee Ready ; Supporting Me initiatives, etc. bulletins; dedicated pages on LTC Work with other organisations/teams to provide and promote through LTC, encourage the use of SfC interactive Individual Employer Toolkit and template resources as a guide ( Work with other organisations and local authority teams e.g. Adult Social Care pre-employment initiatives such a Employee ready or Grow your Own projects to include PAs Ensure the PA role is represented in local social care job fairs Provide through the Workforce Development Team professional training/cpd offer Through Vocational Qualifications Centre Work with other organisations to provide and/or investigate viability for Traded Services in promoting: PA register guidance SfC Developing a local peer network guide Jan 2016 Page 6

7 Funding initiatives as they become available Level 4 Creating networks of support and mutual benefit (ADASS Standard 6,8) 3. Investigate the ability to access IE and PA peer support networks 1. Explore the mutual benefit for IE and local Statutory and PVI services 2. Explore the mutual benefit for PAs and local PVI sector networks/opportunities. Use SfC Link Up initiative to engage with IEs, DPSO/ULOs Promote through CASC TC/organise workshops/stakeholder meetings or groups; e- bulletins, LTC Develop understanding through surveys and feedback requests Jan 2016 Page 7

8 Appendix One ADASS, Learn to Care and Skills for Care Advice note for local authorities Minimum standards of support for individual employers and personal assistants Local authorities should: 1. Support individual employers in the practical areas of employing personal assistants. 2. Develop mechanisms to help individual employers recruit personal assistants. 3. Promote apprenticeships to individual employers and their personal assistants. 4. Consider in a positive light the safeguarding and risk issues around the employment of personal assistants and provide very clear advice to individual employers to enable them to take a balanced view on risk. 5. Provide on-going support both to individual employers and personal assistants through access to training activities in a variety of ways and promote the Workforce Development Fund. 6. Develop an enhanced offer of information and support to those with specific conditions and or ethnic/cultural/linguistic needs and pay specific attention to individuals and communities to ensure that they have the relevant information on local services. 7. Facilitate networks of individual employers and networks of personal assistants so that they can share experiences and offer peer support. 8. Review how they reach people who fund their own care, to ensure that they know which services and support are available. 9. Encourage individual employers and their support organisations to register personal assistants on the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC). Jan 2016 Page 8