5 September 2010 Good Evening

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Self Directed Support Workforce Training Development. Herefordshire Centre of Independent Living

Training of Personal Assistants (PA¹s) and Direct Payment Recipients (DPRs)²

The objectives of the project were to work with Direct Payment Recipients to:

• raise disabled people's awareness of workforce issues, and develop induction and training that would attract, support and enable personal assistants to develop and progress
• develop the skills and knowledge that disabled employers need to be effective in order to maintain positive working relationships with their personal assistants
• use peer mentoring and disabled training teams to pilot tools locally
• to develop a template that would provide guidance on the induction of personal assistants and help employers identify training needs.

The project has four stages:

1. Initial national research on the work of similar NToW projects and local consultation with DPRs and personal assistants regarding their views on training requirements
2. Development of an induction template/package for personal assistants
3. Piloting the package with a number of employer/personal assistant partnerships
4. Identifying key messages and disseminating information.

Results of the research phase.

• Initial research focussing on other new type of worker projects along with local consultations provided the basis for the questionnaires. This covered aspects such as difficulties with recruitment, what was considered mandatory training, what training had been provided, what was available and what would help to develop necessary skills and aid retention of personal assistants. (For further details see Findings June 2009)
• There was no consistency in training provided by employers and some said it was up to the personal assistants to access it themselves. A quarter of the personal assistants who reponded said they had received no training.

The development of an induction pack

The research findings were used to draft an induction pack for individual employers. This covered the principles of care, role of the personal assistant, health and safety, communication, supervision and support needs. The document provided a series of questions geared to individuals circumstances that can be completed as part of a discussion or by the personal assistants. The pack is being piloted in the second half of 2009.

Contact details:
Ginnie Jaques
ginnie@herefordshire-cil.com

¹The term Personal Assistant (PA) is the term that is widely used to denote the role of supporter and paid carer. ²Direct Payment Recipients are people who have, following an assessment of their social care needs by the local authority opted to take money to purchase their own care services, rather than receive services that have been arranged by the local authority.