Unit Hsc23 Handout

Unit HSC23 DEVELOP YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE This unit encourages you to look at your own strengths and limitations so that you can develop and look at your skills further. This unit is about: o How to recognise your own skills o The importance of receiving and acting upon feedback o How to plan and undertake your own development o The opportunities for learning in and outside the workplace o Methods of keeping up-to-date with changes in care practice.

As part of Element HSC23b, you will be required to plan and review your progress and development. You will be supported and advised on setting measurable goals. In other words, you must be able to recognise when you have reached the level of competence you have planned for.

There are a number of sources that inform us of our level of competence: o Feedback from colleagues o Feedback from assessors o Supervision session/appraisals o Formal qualifications o Self-evaluation

Expectations: Your supervisor/manager, colleagues, service users, relatives of service users, and others have expectations about your skills and the standards of your work. You may be able to find out the standards that are expected of you using the following sources: o o o o

Policies and procedures Job description Training activities Appraisal and supervision

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Feedback on your performance is important and can be offered in several ways. •

Supervision is the most common method of getting feedback about your performance. You are required to have six formal supervision from your manager/supervisor each year. These sessions should provide you with regular opportunities to meet with your supervisor in confidence.

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An appraisal is a more formal review meeting between you and your supervisor. They are held twice a year and is more thorough than supervision sessions.

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Staff meetings: you may also receive more general feedback during staff meetings, when methods of working are discussed and staff are informed of any necessary changes. This is usually an opportunity to offer your views and suggestions as to care practice.

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Your NVQ assessor will also provide you with feedback both relating to your written work and observations. This is usually supportive and helps the learning process.

Values and Beliefs All people have their own values and beliefs and this is what makes people different from one another. You have to make sure that yours do not affect the way you work with people. For example, you might disapprove of smoking, and this belief could lead you not to respect other’s rights to do so. You know it is important to protect everyone’s health, and to make sure that their smoking does not affect others; however, you should not allow judgement you make about people’s lifestyle affect the way you relate to them.

Some of the beliefs we hold are influenced by various factors: a) Upbringing: our earliest influences are those we experience from our families in our formative years. They are often very strong and form part of out culture. b) Religion: religious beliefs and practices have a bearing on our moral values such as our views on life and death and determining right from wrong.

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c) Culture: beliefs and traditions differ between cultures such as the role of women or marriage. d) Life experiences: some experiences have a lasting effect on the way we view different people. For example, people who have been affected by a family member’s alcohol or substance abuse may have strong feelings about the topic. e) Education: achieving qualifications often opens the doors for people and gives them the confidence. Likewise, those who, for whatever reason, were not able to achieve their potential may Lack confidence in their own abilities. These are a few factors that help to shape our views and beliefs throughout life. They may change according to different life stages and experiences, but as a care worker, it is important to respect the views of others whether or not you agree with them.

Personal and professional development It is important to plan how you are going to improve yourself. Without planning, it is difficult to achieve targets. These is a saying ‘Failure to plan is planning to fail’. You will gain nothing from self evaluation if you do not act upon it. Having identified the areas you need to develop, you need to plan the steps to take to achieve this. You also need to identify exactly what it is you want to achieve. These are your goals or objectives. For example you identify that you want to develop a new skill that is relevant to your work area: this could be using specialised equipment or machinery. In this case, you should first identify what it is you want to achieve, and then identify how you will go about it. You will need to discuss it with your supervisor, who might suggest you observe someone else who is experienced, or attend training if necessary. The next stage could be to use the equipment under supervision until you and the supervisor are confident that you are competent carrying out this task.

Planning your development: Having identified your strengths and limitations, you will need to look at your training needs. You will use this information to produce your individual action plan for your assessment, and will have an opportunity to investigate sources of training later on.

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Individual action plans Your supervisor will support you in completing action plans during the supervision/appraisal process. You will also complete action and assessment plan with your assessor. These plans will help you approach your NVQ step by step and pace yourself so that everything is not left until the last minute.

The following are some of the courses you may have attended or that may be available to you: Dementia awareness Basic first Aid Moving and handling Fire prevention

Basic Food Hygiene Working safely Infection Control

Legislative requirements for training and development include those covered by: o o o o o o

Care Standards Act 2000 Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 Control of Substance Hazardous to health (COSHH) Regulations 1992 Food Safety Act 1990 Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act, all staff must have training in Basic Food Hygiene, Health and Safety, Manual Handling and First Aid (as appropriate to their job role). However, under the Care Standards Act, new forms of training for care staff are now mandatory. These are: o Induction training (for all new staff, to be completed within the first six weeks) o Foundation training (for all new staff to be completed within the first sixx months) o NVQ Level 2 in Health and Social Care (to be started within the first six months Taking responsibility for your personal development: There are many sources of information that you can use to obtain information on the range of learning and training opportunities that are available. Senior staff in 4

your workplace will support you with this but you can also find out about opportunities that meet your needs. Below are examples of where you can find information about your training needs: Source Colleges or training providers Library Careers office Colleagues/family/friends Staff development Connexions

Information provided Prospectus including programme details, times, dates and venues Details of colleges adult education centres, etc. Training schemes available locally and nationally. Requirement for different careers Details of programmes they have been on or heard about. Details of in-house programmes and externally run programmes which your employer may support. Details of apprenticeship schemes and routes for different careers

Learning from experience As well as training, much of your competence is gained ‘on the job’. You learn while you are doing a job and to some extent by trial and error. This does not mean that you need to make mistakes in order to learn anything, but you look back at work experiences to consider how it could be improved in the future.

Why and how do you do this? So that: I can learn from mistakes I can avoid similar mistakes in the future I can think about what I do at work I can learn from experience I can learn from others I can recognise my strengths and limitations I can help identify development needs I can observe examples of good practice I can review my progress I can identify how to improve particular aspects of my work I can identify new skills I need to gain I can keep up-to-date I can receive feedback from others I can prepare myself for potentially difficult situations I can gain self awareness 5

What sort of situations can you learn from? Difficult situations you have handled (successfully or otherwise) Achievements you are pleases with Positive feedback given to you Good learning experiences (positive or otherwise) Learning from others Examples of good practice New skills gained New experiences In addition to formal programmes of training and development, it is important to remember the staff development that takes place on a day to day basis, as you are constantly learning. You can learn from: o o o o o o o

Observing others Discussion Reading Web sites Formal training sessions Mentoring Informal training opportunities – for example, a member of staff may demonstrate a procedure that is new to you

Keeping up to date In an ever changing work environment such as a care setting, you need to be aware and confident that your knowledge and skills are current. There are constant changes that affect care workers, especially the following: o o o o

Changes in legislations and policy (eg. hanges in the law) New equipment or machinery Advances in health care (eg, new techniques) Information technology

You are expected to keep up with the changes and your organisation should support you to do this. However, you need to be proactive and put yourself forward for staff 6

development events. These include the regular updates for Fire Safety, Basic Food Hygiene, Moving and Handling, etc.

Putting new skills into practice Once you have attended training and developed new skills, your next step is to put this into practice. You will have to show how you use the knowledge you have gained in your work. At first, you will be supervised by more experienced staff who could give you feedback on your progress. Try to identify how this learning makes a difference to the standard of your work. As you learn more about yourself and your work role, you become more aware of your training and development needs. It is essential to plan and ensure that you take up opportunities to develop yourself. Make sure that you feel confident enough to carry out new skills without putting health and safety at risk. You will need to continue to measure your progress. This then allows you to set yourself new goals and also provides encouragement. It will also enable you to evaluate the effectiveness of your plan and help you to identify if you need to make any changes. SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS:       

How to identify your strengths and limitations Sources of feedback The importance of being aware of own personal values and beliefs and how these could potentially affect your work The importance of planning and reviewing your own progress The various development opportunities that are open to you Keeping up to date with changes that affect your work How to apply your learning to practice

Notes extracted from NETWORK TRAINING PUBLISHING 2005

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