Care Assistant Training

If you’ve successfully applied for a care assistant role and have not already gained a Care Certificate, you’ll undergo care assistant training as a prospective carer as part of your induction. 

Training courses consist of 15 modules related to delivering care and are held over a 1 week period for those with no prior experience necessary, followed by a 12 week period of supervision to determine competency. 

However, if you have already received training as a carer, you’ll be able to complete a QCF Level 2 certificate which is fully-funded. 

Over the course of your training, you’ll cover a number of key modules related to delivering care. This include:

1. Understanding your role as a care assistant

In this, your first module, you’ll run through the fundamentals of care work. Covering your general responsibilities, you’ll learn a number of key duties in seeing out your role including communication, building relationships, working as part of a team, file keeping and upholding confidentiality.

You’ll look at how subjective experiences, attitudes and beliefs might come into play as a carer together with your values, aims and objectives.

The module will also run through your rights and responsibilities at work, understanding working conditions, agreed ways of working between you and your employer, whistleblowing and managing effective partnerships.

2. Personal development

Your personal development as a carer is based on your goals and objectives, where you strengths might lie and what your needs are. 

Here, you’ll cover how supervision and appraisal works, gaining agreement with your manager on your objectives, skills development and working with feedback. 

3. Duty of care

Duty of care deals with how you, as a care assistant, promote the wellbeing of those you’re looking after and your legal obligations to do so. This will also relate to how you work with colleagues, healthcare professionals and a general code of conduct with your role.

Module 3 will also deal with how you’re to help support a client’s independence, handling complaints and comments, incident management and relevant legislations in executing your duty. 

4. Equality and diversity 

This module deals with the necessity of understanding how diversity and equality play vital roles in care work, treating all people fairly, understanding and reducing discrimination, relevant legislation, providing equal opportunities and how to take a person-centred approach to delivering care. 

5. Working in a person-centered way

Our values shape how we live our day-to-day lives and are based on our family background, culture, religion, education and how we were brought up. In this module, you’ll learn about what values are fundamental to being a good carer, in particular a person-centered approach whereby the individual comes first. 

You will also learn how to empower the people you’re caring for, how to promote their dignity, learning how to discover who they are as a person and where they come from, and how their needs might change over time and how to recognise that. 

6. Communication

Having good communication skills is an integral part of working in care and building solid relationships with not only those you’re looking after but colleagues, too. You will learn about different types of communication, communicating with other care assistants and individuals, barriers to communicating effectively and confidentiality, 

7. Privacy and dignity 

Two of the most important values you can adhere to as a care assistant are upholding the dignity and privacy of those you care for. This entails ensuring privacy of information, how to make choices that maintain a client’s dignity and performing risk assessments. 

8. Fluids and nutrition 

In this module you’ll deal with fluids, nutrition, food safety, spotting allergic reactions and poor nutrition and helping clients maintain healthy diets.

9. Awareness of mental health, dementia and learning disability 

Many clients will suffer from mental health conditions, learning disabilities, dementia and other issues which will require you, as their carer, to be aware of and report on if need be. 

Psychological conditions like depression and anxiety may also be commonplace amongst those receiving care and in this module you’ll learn to spot the symptoms while being able to sympathetically handle these situations.

You’ll also learn more about the legal obligations surrounding these and how to make assessments of the situations at hand. 

10. Safeguarding adults 

Here, the risks of abuse and neglect of adults is highlighted, making prospective carers aware of the potential dangers those in their care can face.

You’ll learn how to safeguard clients and help ensure their wellbeing, while your responsibilities as a care assistant are made clear, tying into the values of preserving their dignity and rights.You’ll learn how to spot the signs of abuse and neglect while learning more on lodging complaints and whistleblowing.

11. Safeguarding children

A critical module in helping to spot and act upon signs of abuse, you learn how to safeguard and protect children in the course of your care. This will cover types of child abuse, such as physical, emotional and sexual abuse, neglect, radicalisation, Female Genital Mutilaton and child trafficking.  

You’ll learn about the rights of children and how to act when you come across suspected or alleged child abuse.

12. Basic life support

This module deals with basic life support and deals with initial assessment, airway maintenance, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

You will gain hands-on practical experience through step-by-step activities. 

13. Health and safety 

As a care assistant, you’ll be responsible for adhering to health and safety legislation in protecting the people you work with. 

This entails understanding the broader laws and regulations that govern care work, policies and procedures, what you and your employer will be responsible for, any special training that might be required is those responsibilities are part of your role, dealing with hazards and risks, managing medications, fire safety, handling hazardous materials and managing stress. 

14. Handling information 

This module dives deeper into maintaining confidentiality as you deliver care and support to clients. As with modules above, you’ll delve into the legislation around protecting client’s information, reporting concerns and managing care plans. 

15. Infection prevention and control 

In the last of the modules, you’ll deal with how to manage infectious diseases, maintaining clean and sterile working environments, managing chains of infection, your health and hygiene as a carer, health precautions and practicalities like dealing with soiled linen.