The benefits of learning social care the digital way
Paul Clarke
The only certainty in adult social care is the way we operate will constantly change – which increasingly includes the way learning and development opportunities are delivered.
The explosion in the number of laptops, smartphones and tablets means employers can offer their workers much more flexible ways of acquiring skills and knowledge that will help them get better at what they do.
That’s why Skills for Care has been working with the Department of Health, the National Skills Academy for Social Care, the College of Social Work and the Social Care Institute for Excellence to create a national digital working, learning and information strategy.
The aim of the strategy is to support employers, learning providers and other partners to think about how to make sure learning and development delivered using new technology, actually increases the competence and knowledge of their workers.
Aged Care Channel (ACC) is one of the companies helping to lead this technological sea of change in the care sector, by offering 30-minute televised programmes to its members on a variety of practical care topics.
Using real scenarios filmed in care homes with residents and carers, programmes are broadcast via satellite and streamed via tablet and smartphone, straight into care home training sessions and to carers in the field.
“Our learning methodology drives all the content of our programmes which we design, write, film, produce, edit and broadcast in-house from our studios,” says ACC’s director of learning and development, Sue Ascott.
“We begin the process by securing a subject matter expert who works with us to design the content and format of the programme. We have worked with experts such as Julienne Meyer from My Home Life, Sylvie Silver from the National Association for Providers of Activities for Older People and Professor June Andrews of the Dementia Services Development Centre at Stirling University. We film the programme in care homes using real staff and real residents.
“We bring the content back and edit it down before the programme is broadcast into residential care homes through a live satellite TV broadcast, or through a live online transmission once a month. Once the broadcast has taken place, the programme is transferred onto DVD for the homes to build into a library, which is constantly updated to keep pace with changes in the sector.
“When a care home becomes an ACC member, our education support managers go out and deliver ‘train the trainer sessions’ to equip two or three training co-ordinators, who will then set up and host the interactive sessions in the care home using our programmes and support resources.
“The premise of ACC material is that learning takes place in care homes so that learners don’t have to travel to a class room, and that care staff and managers are in an environment where they are comfortable and learning in a ‘safe’ peer group.”
After the programme has finished there is a live 15-minute question and answer phone-in session with an expert, where staff are encouraged to call or text in to share and discuss with the expert the issues that have been developed and raised in the film.
“Once the group have watched the programme, the co-ordinator begins a discussion using the ACC supporting learning resources. Through the process, the group are guided in a facilitated discussion to think about, decide and record what they will do differently and what will actually be deployed in their home.
“Full learning resources are provided for members. There is a participant workbook with 10 questions checking understanding from the programme. There’s then a series of reflective practice questions which encourage the learner to take the knowledge from the programme and commit to doing something different in the workplace.”
From April 2014, ACC will start enabling staff to view their programmes via smartphones and tablets to improve accessibility. Staff can watch programmes on their couch at home or when they have some time between jobs.
“The online platform is taking the best of mobile technology, but has a powerful learning management system running alongside it,” notes Sue. “We allocate a co-ordinator to each home who will create learning plans around the 55 programmes already in the ACC library.
She adds: “They can plan what they want individual learners to watch and complete over a particular period of time, to include both ‘refresher’ learning and new knowledge. Our members tell us that planned learning is learning that actually happens, and with ACC materials available in ‘bite size chunks’ it makes the learning both practical and achievable.
“Through the online platform, the learning management system will email each person prompting them to do the learning and reporting to the co-ordinator to ensure that the learning programme has been completed.”
Sue is keen to point out that the ACC online platform is not to be confused with e-learning.
“We set out to use technology to make it simple and easy for carers to have access to our live television programmes, to our extensive library of learning content and to the experts. We see technology as an enabler of connections, discussions, interactions and sharing.”
ACC is very clear about driving shifts in behaviours, quality and the specific role of technology in learning and development.
The challenge now for all sector organisations looking to harness the power of digital technology is to balance the flexibility of portable devices against ensuring development sessions really do deliver high quality skills and knowledge in a rapidly changing care sector.
To download the digital working, learning and information sharing strategy click here.
To find out more about ACC go to www.agedcarechannel.co.uk or see them on YouTube.
