Edgeworks News

Following the government's commitment in 2009 to develop a comprehensive strategy for Autism, the Autism Act 2009 became the first ever disability specific law in England.

The Autism Act will guarantee the introduction of a national autism strategy which will set out how services should be improved covering health, social care, employment and training. Importantly, it will place a legal obligation on local authorities and NHS bodies to meet specific requirements and is expected to be published by April 2010 with the accompanying legal guidance due by December 2010.

A key tenet of the Autism strategy is likely to be the development of specialist autism teams aimed at improving diagnosis, training and developing capacity to support adults with autism. As part of this momentum, Skills for Care has launched additional knowledge sets to include; 'Supporting People with an autistic spectrum condition'. These knowledge sets will be used to establish learning disability focused vocational qualifications as part of the new Qualifications and Credit Framework.

In response to the introduction of the Autism Strategy, Edgeworks is pleased to announce the launch of our latest Care Academy course; 'Supporting people with Autistic Spectrum Disorders' which has been mapped to the required Skills for Care knowledge set. In summary the course outline is as follows:

1. Introduction to Autism.
2. Laws and policies associated with supporting someone with Autistic Spectrum Condition.
3. Supporting someone with an Autistic Spectrum Condition.
4. Supporting the person with Autistic Spectrum Condition through good practice.

To find out more about our Autism e-learning course please call 0161 228 1712 or contact us via our on-line form.

Care Academy is pleased to announce the launch of our latest course, 'Understanding Challenging Behaviour in Care' which whilst being important in it's own right, is perfectly timed to compliment our Level 2 Dementia course.

Given the estimate that some 70% of people living with dementia will exhibit some form of challenging behaviour during their lifetime, it will come as no surprise to discover that it's a subject high on many care providers agenda.

Challenging Behaviour is a complex subject, so it's reassuring to know that our course meets the requirements of Skills for Care Induction Standards, with the key learning outcomes being:

• Explain what challenging behaviour is and possible reasons for it occurring. 
• List the different types of challenging or aggressive behaviour.
• Understand how to manage challenging/aggressive behaviour.
• Understand the importance of your own personal safety when working alone.
• Describe how to identify the risks and how to apply risk assessment procedures to your work.

To find out more about Care Academy please call 0161 228 1712 or contact us via our online form.

With the threat of swine flu now seeming no more than a distant memory, Infection Prevention and Control is still very much a hot topic for the Care Quality Commission. In their recent report; 'Working Together to Prevent and Control Infections', CQC suggest that infection prevention in care homes is inadequate, with many failing to follow guidance documents published by the Department of Health; 'Essential Steps' which provides practical advice on infection control and ' Infection control for care homes'.

In August, the Department of Health launched a consultation on revising the infection control guidance for care homes as part of a wider review on a new code of practice for health and social care providers on infection prevention and control. The draft code contains details of how providers should comply with registration requirements which will come into force for NHS providers in April 2010 and adult care providers in October 2010.

To help organisations prepare to meet their compliance requirements, Edgeworks has decided to offer new Care Academy clients free access to our dedicated 'Infection Prevention and Control' online learning until March 2010.

The course is designed to meet Skills for Care knowledge set for Infection Prevention and Control, covering:

Additionally, as part of this promotion, we will also include access to our unique 'Policy-Safe' solution, enabling client's to deliver, track and confirm acceptance of key policies and procedures which is crucial to achieving compliance. 

The Infection Prevention and Control course will be made available to the first 25 organisations on a 'first come first served' basis and will include a maximium 50 user licence.

To discuss in more detail or to claim your free access, please contact us on 0161 228 1712 or via our online form.

Edgeworks Care Academy now provides learning and assessment materials to more than 25,000 users UK wide along with a range of innovative workforce development and management technologies. In September 09 alone, we recorded more than 5,500 learning hours, with this figure growing month on month. We expect to deliver more than 10,000+ learning hours per month by the end of 2009!

Based on the above, we're well on our way to becoming the market leader in technology enabled learning for the social care sector.

Key Technology Developments

Care Academy is the only Learning Management System on the market that has been developed specifically for the care sector. This means all of our learning content is contextualised and has not been created for another sector and then simply re-badged. Our Learning Disability Induction Award is the only accredited City & Guilds course of it's kind. Furthermore, we aim to use the same unique technology to deliver more courses focusing on Dementia, Mental Capacity Act and End of Life to name just a few.

We have also continued to build more unique functionality such as our Training Strategy Implementation (TSI) funding management and administration solution.  This innovative feature automatically generates the necessary TSI funding forms, complete with candidate details upon completion of the CIS - client's now never need miss an opportunity to claim valuable training funds!

Return on Investment

Care Academy typically delivers 1 learning hour for every £1 of investment, with larger employers benefitting from even greater economies of scale. Compared with the traditional cost of delivering, managing, tracking and reporting on compliance related training, Care Academy continues to provide unbeatable value-for-money.

Enable Training Staff to deliver higher value courses

Many of our client's only really appreciate the true value of Care Academy after it has been deployed. Using Care Academy to deliver, manage and report on routine mandatory training enables valuable and expensive training staff to focus their efforts on delivering higher value, more rewarding training programmes. By re-focussing on 'specialist' areas, the training team can then make a significant impact on the business strategy. So not only do training personnel love Care Academy, but so too do Operation and Finance managers!

If you would like to find out more about how Edgeworks Care Academy can help you deliver your training please contact us on 0161 228 1712 or via our online form.

Edgeworks has added our Administration of Medication training course to Care Academy..

The course covers the Knowledge requirements of the Health & Social Care NVQ optional Unit 375, including:

• Legislation and organisational policy and procedures
• Drug storage (such as medical and legal regulations, local pharmacy policy)
• Drug handling, preparation and administration
• Health and safety when dealing with drugs (eg COSHH)
• Theory and practice
• Care and support
• Pharmacology
• Materials and equipment e.g. medication aids
• Reporting, recording and documentation

Written by industry experts and reviewed by CSCI (now CQC), the course will ensure staff receive training in line with national minimum standards and when supported with workplace supervision, will exceed inspection requirements.

To find out more about our Administration of Medication course please contact us.