Planning for the future

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Learning and personal development

Learning and development play a critical role in building staff morale, motivation and satisfaction as well as impacting on performance, talent management, recruitment and retention. In human care systems, where outcomes are not always predictable and where personal and social values can impact on what happens to individuals, the creation of learning cultures which encourage reflection on experience and a commitment to acting on learning about what needs to be different, is essential for the wellbeing of both staff and those accessing services.

The ‘personal’ element of care is a critical and distinctive aspect of learning and development in the care sector because the values, behaviours and mindsets of frontline staff are evident in every interaction with those accessing services. Creating benchmarks and opportunities to reflect on personal behaviour as well as providing opportunities for personal development is therefore critical in developing a workforce fit for the job.

The quality and accessibility of learning and development for all staff therefore matters for the following key reasons:

1. Compliance – eg with clinical care and sector standards. These are set by professional bodies to ensure quality of care, performance standards and health and safety, including safeguarding procedures for both the workforce and clients in a human services sector that relies on subjective notions such as trust and relationships to define quality.


2. Care outcomes – good practice directly impacts on performance and quality of outcomes in all sectors. In the care sector this is a critical factor as the ‘consumers’ are frequently vulnerable and may not have personal capacity to advocate for themselves. To varying extents, those accessing services rely on others for the most personal aspects of day-to-day living so the quality of their life experience is determined by the behaviour and practice of others. Ensuring that staff are constantly able to refresh their personal learning and sustain good practice matters significantly in the care sector.


3. Organisational culture – the culture is shaped by the values, priorities and behaviours of the organisation’s leaders. Creating learning opportunities to reflect on these aspects will help staff to develop awareness of their role in shaping culture and will also help to develop new ways of working in relation to complex care challenges.


4. Innovation and practice – organisations which openly promote learning cultures and build cycles of reflection and development into their organisational strategies are more likely to learn from mistakes and generate innovation. Evidence from recent high profile inquiries into serious incidents in health and care would suggest that organisations that do not encourage learning and open reflection risk silencing the voices that challenge poor performance and may lose the potential for lateral thinking and problem solving.

Learning and development activities are essential components and indicators of quality in health and care organisations. However, they are often the first budgets to be cut in times of austerity and financial challenge. It is argued that a direct correlation between workforce development and outcomes for people using services so cutting learning and development budgets is a false economy and leads to poor practice, falling standards and a decline in business. In a competitive care market, increasing learning and development activities rather than reducing them, will often offer a competitive advantage.

Learning and development strategies are a useful way to systematically address the above and build a learning culture across your organisation.

1. Incorporate a learning and development strategy (L&D) into your organisational plan. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is the UK professional body for continuing professional development. They offer a useful definition of a L&D strategy and provide a free resource sheet on developing one. (You can access the resource for free by logging into the CIPD website.)


2. Build a continuous learning framework into appraisals and workforce strategies. SSSC and the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS) have developed a continuous learning framework designed to support workforce learning and development in social services. It offers key principles and tools to support social care organisations in developing their own approach.


3. Prioritise and resource learning and development programmes. Develop or commission your own in-house learning and development activities which are bespoke to your organisational values and purpose. Or access the many development programmes on offer for health and care staff in Scotland and beyond. SSSC has developed Open Badges so that an organisation can provide recognition for their internal learning and development activities.


4. Ensure access and diversity of learning opportunities. It can be helpful to think about the different purposes for learning and development to make sure that the most appropriate type of offer is provided. For example technical skill development, such as lifting and handling or compliance knowledge, is best addressed through ‘taught’ skills and training programmes which may be provided in person or through virtual learning mediums. Relational skill development, such as care assessment or management skills, is best addressed through personal development based programmes which may be experiential and interactive rather than ‘taught’.

It is also important to consider the diversity of possible learning styles in the workforce and to provide a suite of offers which acknowledge the different ways in which adults learn.

Touchpoint toolkit

Download: toolkit / touchpoint-four.docx

Resources and signposting

The SSSC Learning Strategy drives learning activity to support employers and workers to learn and develop in a way that works for them and that meets the needs of people using services. It sets the context for learning in social services in Scotland and identifies learning priorities for the sector.

The Continuous Learning Framework (CLF) sets out what people in the social service workforce need to be able to do their job well now and in the future and describes what employers need to do to support them.

The Organisational Capabilities help employers to:

• identify, analyse and meet the learning needs of their workforce
• enable social service workers to be the best they can be.

The Personal Capabilities focus on managing self and managing relationships, emphasising the importance of softer skills and emotional intelligence as workforce attributes.

Step into Leadership helps you to find resources and information to develop your own and others’ leadership skills. Scotland’s social services need effective leadership at all levels of the workforce, as well as citizen leadership from people who access support and their carers.

The Leadership for Integration 360 tool is designed to help health and social care professionals reflect on their leadership capabilities, and identify strengths and areas for development.

The National Occupational Standards (NOS) in Social Services and Health Care form the basis of qualifications for the majority of social services workers, who are required to register with SSSC. The development and maintenance of common UK NOS for job roles plays a significant role in the mobility of the workforce across the UK. The NOS Navigator can also help you to:

• identify specific skills sets relevant to your service
• inform service development
• inform the preparation of job descriptions and person specifications
• assist with approaches to supervision, professional development and appraisal.

Supervision contributes to safe and consistent standards of practice and forms part of an organisation’s system of quality assurance. The SSSC Supervision Resource aims to promote good practice in supervision across social work and social care in Scotland.

Mentoring, as a support activity and resource, is one of a range of practical tools for empowering leaders, managers and other staff to meet the challenge of change and continuous improvement. Mentors can form an internal network across organisations or departments supporting individuals or groups. The SSSC Mentoring Guidance aims to promote good practice in peer mentoring, providing a framework designed to be adaptable to a range of contexts.

A coaching approach can help commissioners and managers to develop an organisational culture of service and business improvement. The SSSC Coaching Learning Resource can support people in Scotland’s social services to develop a coaching approach across their organisation.

Those entering the social service workforce and registered with SSSC are required to adhere to the SSSC Codes of Practice, including taking responsibility for their own learning and development. The Codes of Practice set out standards of practice and behaviour expected of social service workers and their employers.

The Code of Practice for Social Service Workers describes clear standards of professional conduct and practice that social service workers must meet in their everyday work.

The Code of Practice for Social Service Employers details the responsibilities of employers in the regulation of social service workers.

Making decisions is part of day-to-day practice in social services and it is a necessary skill that social service workers are able to make sound decisions. This attribute has implications in workforce planning and development. In the Making Better Decisions learning resource you will find a number of scenarios that relate to work roles across social services. All the scenarios reflect real situations and dilemmas in which workers have made ‘wrong’ decisions that have led to investigations about their actions. They include aspects that commonly arise in such cases.

Organisations, in their workforce planning activity, should be concerned in the shaping of their workers’ continuous professional development (CPD) to address current and future needs. In a climate of resource constraints, any investments in learning need to be aligned with organisational priorities. As such, increasing attention is being paid to workplace learning, and situational learning - using digital platforms and blended learning in bite-size pieces. In this arena, Open Badges are providing an accessible way of planning, achieving and recognising learning. Open Badges are digital records of achievements and skills that are tied to assessment and evidence. Unlike paper certificates, Open Badges are manageable online.

Registration has an impact on workforce planning, as social service workers have to register with SSSC and must meet the requirements for registration in terms of their fitness to practise.

The role assigned by an employer to a worker determines the part (or parts) of the register that the worker must apply for. Registration requires workers to:

• hold, or achieve within a specified period, a qualification that is accepted by SSSC for the relevant part of the register
• adhere to the SSSC Codes of Practice
• maintain their fitness to practise
• engage in continuing professional learning – meeting the requirements for Post Registration Training and Learning (PRTL).

Fitness to practise is a requirement for registering, and ongoing registration, with SSSC.

A social service worker is fit to practise if they meet the standards of character, conduct and competence necessary for them to do their job safely and effectively with regard to the SSSC Codes of Practice.

Implications for workforce planning include recruitment of workers who can meet, and continue to meet, registration and fitness to practise criteria.

The SSSC Learning Zone has apps and resources to help all those in social service workroles to develop their knowledge and skills. The resources are all free and individuals can work through them at their own pace. Learning from the resources can contribute towards Post Registration Training and Learning (PRTL) and employers are welcome to use the resources within their workplaces.

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) is Scotland’s national qualifications framework. The SCQF supports lifelong learning and can help:

• workers to access appropriate education and training over their career
• employers, learners and the general public to understand the full range of Scottish qualifications, how qualifications relate to each other and to other forms of learning, and how different types of qualification can contribute to improving the skills of the workforce.

Social Services Knowledge Scotland (SSKS) is a website and digital library dedicated to the social services sector. It includes high-quality materials from leading UK and worldwide research and educational institutions, to help inform your research and practice.

Iriss promotes positive outcomes for the people who use Scotland's social services, by enhancing the capacity and capability of the social services workforce, to access and make use of knowledge and research for service innovation and improvement.

Iriss has developed a resource on Building your Personal Learning Network. People who can seek new information, make sense of it, and share it with their colleagues will be an asset to any work team.

The SSSC interactive Career Pathways Tool helps social service workers see what opportunities and different professional roles a career in social services could offer them. There are three main pathways to explore:

• working with children and young people
• working with adults
• social work.

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Planning for the future by the Scottish Social Services Council is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://learn.sssc.uk.com.