It’s the new certification that’s being rolled out to improve care standards, but for many The Care Certificate isn’t just the result of a few reports and reviews, it’s also a chance to help employees grow and learn as professionals. The way that The Care Certificate is constructed – with “Knowledge and Capability” essentially meaning “theory and practical” – naturally integrates with e-learning.
The starting point is simply to use e-learning to complete the knowledge segment of the certificate. Using an online course you can teach your staff everything they need to know, with them able to take the lessons at their own pace, on their own devices, and even fit them around existing work. The benefits e-learning brings (including mobile and independent learning) suit a work environment where employees are expected to be learning as they’re working. Plus, e-learning’s flexible, independent approach works as well for focused, long term sessions as it does for piecemeal, micro-learning ones.
E-learning is going to make the Knowledge section much more adaptive for carers, but surely can’t it also be used for the Competence section? Well, while e-learning alone cannot directly act as the automatic assessment machine in the same way it can for the Knowledge portion, it can function as a primer and organiser. By making sure all the essential learning is in place, you can “flip the classroom” and make sure all theory and research is done without having to set foot in a formal lesson. This way, when the competence test is underway, your staff will already know what to do without needing to learn the theory then and there. The system can also provide resources for revision prior to the tests, giving your staff a curated library to refer to.
The true secret of e-learning isn’t to make it all-encompassing, but to make it a complementary catalyst to “standard” learning. In the case of The Care Certificate, the best suggestion isn’t to digitise the whole learning process, but rather to recognise what parts of the course would benefit from a less analogue approach. We believe that utilising an LMS and integrating a decent care certificate course will set the path to evolving your organisation’s learning and development – not just in the short term, but in the future too.
For more information, fill in our contact form or email us at healthcare@webanywhere.com