Mary has worked in the same residential care home for adults for 20 years. She has participated in a number of compulsory training courses but struggles to see the value of learning. Mary is chatting to her line manager John in the office one day about one of the residents Kate who suffers from dementia. Mary has noticed that the dementia seems to be making Kate a bit aggressive on occasion. Mary has always got on well with Kate and is finding this difficult. John thinks that this may be a good starting point to look at Mary's learning and development and arranges a meeting to discuss this with her.
John decides to use the Continuous Learning Framework to help Mary to identify her learning needs in this area. When they meet Mary and John agree that there is a need for her to improve her knowledge of dementia. Only John has access to the internet so he goes to the Dementia Services Development Centre website and finds a range of resources and training courses. He persuades the organisation to purchase a couple of these resources but is told there is no money left in the budget for external training courses in this financial year. He records this as a priority need for the coming year as he is aware that this is an issue for other members of staff as well.
John and Mary go on to look at the personal capabilities. Managing conflict rings particular bells for Mary as she finds it difficult to balance her own values about Kate's right to make choices and express herself with the need to make sure that Kate, the other residents and staff are safe. John helps her to recognise that by identifying this issue and seeking support to deal with it, Mary is already demonstrating the personal capability at the engaged stage of progression.
Mary agrees to make a note over the next two weeks of what happens when Kate is aggressive, what seems to trigger this and the ways in which staff manage the behaviour. She also agrees to talk about this the next time the team meet. At the team meeting Mary's observations strike a chord with other members of staff and it is clear that some ways of caring for Kate are more effective than others. John uses the resources he has obtained from the dementia centre to inform the discussion and the team arrive at a plan for managing these situations safely and consistently. Mary's colleagues give her really positive feedback about her input and the difference the discussion will make to their practice. The effect on Mary is marked. She was struggling to be at the engaged stage in terms of self-confidence but is now evidencing this and beginning to demonstrate some aspects of the established stage of this capability.
As well as supporting social service workers when specific learning issues arise, as with Mary's work with Kate, the Framework can also be used to strengthen identification of learning needs at annual reviews.
John meets with Mary for her annual performance review. They use the Continuous Learning Framework to identify Mary's learning needs for the coming year. Mary's job function is that of a support worker so she will need to work towards an SVQ level 2 when she registers with the SSSC after April 2009. Together they identify some personal capabilities which will help to support Mary in this process and particularly her ability to reflect on her own practice. They come up with accurate self assessment and lifelong learning.
John recaps on the piece of work Mary did relating to Kate and how this demonstrated her ability to take responsibility for her own learning. He also tells her that he has had very positive feedback from her colleagues and that he has observed real improvements in Mary's practice with Kate.
Mary begins to accept that she can and does learn all the time. John and Mary agree that she will do more of this observation and note taking activity and that they will make time to discuss this. John will help Mary identify sources of underpinning knowledge with Mary taking increasing responsibility for making the links between this and what she is observing, working towards doing reflective accounts. The aim is for Mary to be able to develop her self assessment to established level.
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