What we offer

Improved leadership and management skills are critical in helping the social care sector deliver better care in the current economic climate. We place the person-centred values of social care at the heart of our leadership and management training, whether for front-line staff or senior leaders:

• Recent graduates Our National Management Trainee Scheme is the first of its kind. It’s a new way to attract people into the sector and develop future leaders. We’ve placed students with employers like Bupa, the Bourneville Village Trust and Cornwall Care.
• Front-line leaders Front-line staff have a direct impact on the quality of users’ care. We help them understand how the values and behaviours of leadership at the front line are crucial to excellent care delivery. This course is rolling out after successful pilots including MacIntyre Charity, Anchor Trust and Abbeyfield.
• Senior managers of the future Our Aspiring Leaders programme focuses on leadership within the commercial reality of day-to-day operations. The course has been developed with Ashridge, one of Europe’s top business schools.
• New Directors We work with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) to run a programme to support senior managers when they’re newly promoted to lead local authority adult social services.

Our Endorsement Framework aims to address the concerns that people have about social care training:

• Employers Budgets need to be spent on high-quality training.
• Learners Those on the training want it to help their daily work and their long-term career.
• Providers Trainers want a way to stand out from their competitors.

The framework is a continuous development tool for providers to show they understand and meet the needs of employers and learners.

We offer two quality marks for organisations:

1.Centres of Excellence are training providers who demonstrate exemplary commitment to meeting the needs of learners in adult social care, to compliance with the social model of care, and to understanding and measuring the impact of their provision on the lives of the people who use services.

2.Recognised Providers demonstrate that their organisation takes a professional approach to education and training in adult social care.

We also offer a third quality mark for individual social care trainers:

3.Endorsed Practitioners are 'sole-trader' training providers who demonstrate that they take a professional approach to education and training in adult social care.

The three quality marks have been developed with employers. They are based on peer review and managed by a network of Regional Review Coordinators.

Organisations and individuals increasingly need commissioning skills. We aim to provide knowledge and evidence to commissioners across adult social care.

We’re working with representatives across the adult social care sector to develop e-learning resources and case studies. These will be available in 2011.