A lot is made of Basic Skills, or Skills For Life as it is now known, and quite rightly so. At a recent Social Care Institute of Excellence conference, one of the break-out sessions was to discuss questions around the SISCo project.
Now Skills For Life is an umbrella term for basic numeracy and literacy skills, described by NCFE as:
“the ability to read, write and speak English and to use mathematics at a level necessary to function and progress at work and society in general”.
Okay, fine and I am not going to argue that a certain level of English (both written and spoken) and basic Mathematics should be a key (‘Basic’) skill for Care Workers, but I will argue that there are other areas that I would determine as ‘basic skills’ that should also be considered and tested as part of a ‘Care Skills For Life’ programme.
NCFE agree with one of the areas –
“Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and ESOL (English for Speaker of Other Languages) are also recognised and included in this definition of Skills for Life”.
One area that I raised at the conference was that of Time Management – consider these scenario’s:
- A care worker incorrectly spells the word Paracetamol on Mrs. Jones’ Medication Chart.
- A care worker is late arriving at Mrs. Jones and as a result misses giving her 11am medication.
Which one has more impact on the Service User? Poor time management is almost expected in many walks of life, I am not the best – how many times have I been rushing through the nursery door at five past six saying “sorry I’m late”? But in Care it is vitally important. If a Care Worker cannot plan and manage their day – arriving at the correct time for visits, getting people up at the time they have asked for, etc, the disruption for a Service User is potentially immense.
Yet I have not yet met a Care Provider that includes time management training in their portfolio of courses.
Perhaps Basic Skills for Care does not conform totally with the Skills for Life definition?