7 September 2010 Good Morning

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Picking Your Pathways

The project started with an action plan to consult with both Personal Assistants and recipients of Direct Payments. A questionnaire was developed and several consultation events were held around the country to seek the views of DP/IB holders and those who support them in order to find out what training they thought was needed for Personal Assistants to do a good job. We also asked what training they currently used for their Personal Assistants and if it was any good.

Background

There are a growing number of Personal Assistants in the social care workforce and their new employers with Direct Payments or Individual Budgets don't always know what training they need, where to find it, and if it is any good. Personal Assistants are difficult to reach and have very few support or information networks. Many of them have never worked in social care before and are also unaware of the training needed or available to them. Something was needed to pull together views on what training was needed and what was currently available. This is a good time to be looking at training and possible new qualifications because the national framework upon which all recognised qualifications sit is changing. Existing qualifications will need to be 'repackaged', and funding is likely to be made available for those qualifications that sit on the new framework.

Objectives

The development of a 'Matrix' to support Personal Assistants users to identify training needs and opportunities for their Personal Assistants. The project addresses the needs of people commissioning their own service and employing workers. The project will be done in partnership with a user led organisation of people who use Personal Assistants - Independent Living Alternatives. The sustainability of the Personal Assistant role will be helped by the link with National Occupational Standards, the possibility of an accredited award(s) and links to other social care roles.

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ARC update 24.7.09

90 delegates attended the 6 consultation events and a further 71 PA Employers and 56 PAs completed questionnaires. We had lots of interest from a range of other professionals who were interested in consulting with this group of people.

What has been achieved?

We have compiled a brief report for each event, and put them on the websites of ARC and ILA. A draft report has been sent to every delegate with an accompanying thank you letter.  Other professionals who expressed an interest will be sent a link to the websites so that they can make use of the initial findings. We have collated all the questionnaire responses onto two spreadsheets, one for PAs and one for PA Users, and we have carried out some initial analysis and verified the  information we have collected about existing useful training. We are developing the Matrix as an interactive tool (website) and the development of this is almost complete.

We have set up 3 e-forums, one for PA Employers, one for PAs, and one for interested professionals. These are not very active at the moment, but we are hoping members will eventually realise the opportunity they offer for peer support.

A brief report was sent to Skills for Care, with recommendations that any future possible qualifications for PAs should be focused on knowledge and theory behind the work undertaken in the role, and less about how the tasks are carried out (ie less about competence that needs observation assessment and more about the theory behind how to do things well and safely).

This project work convinced ARC to tender for another piece of work from Skills for Care, and has resulted in the production of a Toolkit to support people through the process of recruiting a PA.  It is available from the Skills for Care website and ARC’s PANet website.”