Training
Castlebeck has a very strong training and development programme. Staff are encouraged to improve their performance and the performance of others.
The company has appeared in the top half of the Nursing Times Top 100 Employers survey for the last three years.
From the very beginning of employment with Castlebeck, staff are involved in their own development. In their very first week of employment they are enrolled onto the bespoke e-learning induction course, developed in partnership with Creative Learning Media.
This package includes Health and Safety, Food safety, Company orientation and an introduction to learning disabilities. The package was designed to provide the underpinning knowledge for the Learning Disabilities Awards Framework (Now Learning Disabilities Qualification). All new support workers are then immediately enrolled onto the Learning Disabilities Qualification even if they have experience of care. Doing so ensures a consistency of skills and competencies for all.
Training is available at all levels to all employees at Castlebeck and is fully encouraged and enabled by our in-house training department.
The group's commitment to emulate the type of education programmes and academic traditions more commonly found in NHS environments is vitally important. This helps to attract the best specialists and aspiring clinicians in their chosen fields, and creates a platform where clinical excellence and innovation are standard to its service users.
Castlebeck has been successful in its blended approach to training, involving internal and external training providers in equal measure. In the North East, Castlebeck has successfully forged links recently with Teesside University, University of York and University of Hull. Castlebeck continues to foster mutually supportive partnerships with local health and social services, leading to joint training opportunities.
The foundation of the training programme within Castlebeck is the delivery of the NVQ in Health and Social Care. All staff have access to at least NVQ Level 2 training.
The programme provides staff, who are already gaining first class experience and training, confidence that they are performing to a high level with the potential to move on further. All of the NVQs are delivered through the City and Guilds Registered Centre primarily using full time Assessors and Verifiers with assistance from work based assessors. Many of the assessors have gained their A1 Assessors qualification through the Castlebeck City and Guilds centre.
Castlebeck has been successful in seeking ways, through partnership agreements, to develop staff further by assisting them in accessing Nurse Training.
Throughout the company and particularly in the North-East, where the service is longest-established, there are examples of staff who started as Care Assistants and progressed through NVQ to nurse training and then returned to take up full time nursing posts. Some have gone onto Charge Nurse Level and have completed the in-house Management Development course.
Castlebeck has supported all managers to achieve the minimum of the industry standard Registered Managers Award (a level 4 qualification). In recent years we have negotiated with local colleges to combine the award with the more academic Diploma. Since 2006 we have, in partnership with John Andrewes Associates, delivered the Level 5 Certificate in Management. This award allows Castlebeck to develop not only current managers but also potential leaders of the future. It also delivers a tailor-made course specific to the Castlebeck Group. We are currently delivering this programme to the third cohort of students to enroll.
