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Knowledge and Skills Sets |
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Wednesday, 28 May 2008 13:39 |
Introducing knowledge sets for adult social care
Knowledge sets are sets of key learning outcomes for specific areas of work within adult social care. They are designed to improve consistency in the underpinning knowledge learnt by the adult social care workforce in England.
It is intended that the key learning outcomes within each knowledge set will be used by employers to develop in-house learning and by training providers, publishers and awarding bodies to produce learning programmes, resources (cd-roms, videos, workbooks) and, potentially, awards. The key learning outcomes are intended to provide minimum standardised outcomes that employers may use either to produce their own in-house learning or learning packages or as a benchmark when buying in learning provision or learning packages.
Knowledge sets are designed to be used separately or alongside the Common Induction Standards and as part of a worker’s continuing professional development. Their aim is to provide specific standardised knowledge and understanding to help social care workers undertake their role.
Employers will use knowledge sets to provide knowledge and understanding in particular subjects for their workers so that the service benefits from:
· essential learning for specific tasks
· enhanced worker practice
· staff being supported to complete their NVQs by a systematic approach to underpinning knowledge.
Social care workers will use knowledge sets to:
· assist their development of new skills to open up career options and as part of their continuing professional development
· improve self confidence
· support transition between different service settings in the social care sector
· ensure that they are working in accordance with current good practice.
By early 2007, Skills for Care’s Occupational Standards and Qualifications committee had approved six knowledge sets for publication, covering: dementia, medication, infection prevention & control, workers not directly delivering care, nutrition & well-being, and safeguarding vulnerable adults.
Knowledge set progress logs
In addition to the main knowledge set documents, there is also a ‘progress log’ edition of each knowledge set. A progress log will be required for each individual worker/learner for each knowledge set. Individuals should be enabled to keep copies of their progress logs showing their ‘signed off’ progress for their NVQ portfolios.
Topics covered by knowledge sets
The main document and the progress log for each can be downloaded by clicking on the links at the bottom of the page (the documents are less than a dozen pages or c.200kb each). These files are downloadable as Word documents so that employers and trainers can easily copy from them into their own learning materials (see copyright notice on each document).
Work is in progress on further knowledge sets, and on an employer's guide to their use.
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