Recognising the skills of our Care Professionals...

Celebrating our initiative which sees Exeter & East Devon colleagues embark specialist learning.

In October 2021, we were thrilled to launch our Personalised Career Pathways scheme, which promoted the benefits of further training and qualifications to our valued colleagues and Care Professionals…

Fast forward to 2023, and we are quite amazed by the success of this initiative which has seen a considerable number of team members both complete RQF qualifications and embark on new specialist learning targets.

We consider training to be the ‘magic ingredient’, crucial to the continued success of our Company. Ensuring that colleagues are encouraged to learn and develop in a fully supported manner, remains a goal for the Directors and Leadership team at Home Instead. It’s part of our pledge to not only change the face of aging by providing truly person-centred care, but to also change the perception of the care sector – one visit and one qualification at a time…

Currently, over twenty percent of our workforce of more than one hundred are participating on a fully funded, RQF qualification with Home Instead.

These courses are ongoing at various levels, supported in no small part by the excellent Course Assessors at Hudson Training, our RQF course partners. Along with Hudson, our own Training & Retention Team offer regular revision and coursework sessions for Home Instead students, where they can support one another, share ideas and a good deal of laughs, too!

RQF qualifications allow students the opportunity to develop their skills via sector relevant qualifications, which then offer scope for diversity and progression in the direction chosen by the participant. The breadth of learning available is wide, and we have seen students take on the challenge of both community care related routes and managerial options alike – both have great merits, and both offer great career possibilities.

Specialist learning also exists at Home Instead, with a number of colleagues opting to focus on particular areas of interest such as Dementia care or Parkinson’s disease, with some real success stories being created, such as that of Kate. Balancing the role of community Care Professional and office Training & Support Team Leader perfectly, and on a part time basis, Kate has thoroughly enjoyed her learning experience – linking to her own background as a teacher in secondary education.

The professionalisation of the care sector has been long overdue, in our opinion. So, along with identifying our care colleagues appropriately, as Care Professionals, and by offering them the opportunity to validate their exceptional skills via formal qualifications, we feel we are doing our utmost to meet the criteria of our official ‘5 Star Employer in Care’ award that we so proudly hold, alongside our Age-Friendly Employer Pledge, commitment to being Disability Confident and a Menopause Supporter too.

Following on from the difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the UK economy experienced something of a shift, with many industries sadly struggling to survive. The care sector has the potential to thrive and indeed, it is one of the UK’s fastest growing economies, with research conducted by the cross-party Health and Social Care Committee predicting the need for almost 500,000 additional recruits by the early part of the next decade. It certainly has great prospects and offers enormous potential to the right candidates.

At Home Instead, we offer competitive rates of pay, a range of guaranteed hour contracts, flexible working that has the ability to fit around family life and other work commitments, fully funded learning, paid birthday leave, and a host of other work and leisure related perks… all as part of our friendly, sociable and supportive team. In every way with Home Instead, ‘care’ just got more rewarding!

If you would like further information regarding our 5 Star recruitment opportunities and Personalised Career Pathways, please don’t hesitate. Give our team a call on 01395 200600, take a look at the Current Vacancies on our website – including Live- In care opportunities – or find us on Facebook and discover why we are different.