Last year, I was nominated by my company to enroll on a course called the Aspiring Managers Pilot.
I was told that it was funded by the government and run by Skills for Care in an effort to ensure that the next generation of managers in the health and social care sector were prepared and well-trained for the challenges of the role. I would also receive high-quality training which would give me a sound foundation should decide to pursue my Level 5 Diploma in the future.
I’m a keen learner and always interested in working on my personal and professional development. As I’d almost completed my Level 3 Diploma, I was looking for something to work towards during 2017/2018 and this seemed to fit the bill.
I applied and was accepted. I started in October 2017 and am now about halfway through the year-long course. Below is a list of the components of the course and my thoughts about them (in bold).
- Preliminary Face-to-Face Event in Oct 17: Meet and Greet for tutors and students, introduction to the course. Great way to kick off the course and meet everyone.
- Learning Record: Reflection account to be filled in every month as well as separate reflections on specific parts of the course. Great way to think about what you’ve done and stay focused.
- Lead to Succeed Course: 5-day Leadership Course (not 5 consecutive days, 1 day per month over 5 months). Fantastic course delivered by Coleman Training & Consultancy. Topics are:
- Leaders & Managers
- Developing a Positive Culture
- Effective Supervision
- Leading & Managing the Process of Change
- Leading & Managing the Inspection Process
- Manager Induction Standards: A giant folder packed with information and a lot of questions to answer. The industry-standard for managers. Fantastic information and very thought-provoking questions that inspire to do some research. It is a lot of work to plough through and you have to do it in your own time with very little support but well worth it.
- Experience Tour: You are assigned a “buddy” who is another student on the course and you visit each other’s workplace to learn from one another (just an hour or two and you arrange the visits between yourselves). It was interesting to see how other providers in health and social care work, however mine and my buddy’s workplaces are completely different so they were difficult to compare – I work in supported living and she works in a nursing home.
- Mid-Point Meeting: Meet up with cohorts and Skills for Care to chat about progress and do a little reflection and learning. Quite useful to catch up with everyone and discuss our learning.
- Online Forum: Participate in a Linked-In group with other students (nationwide). No-one really contributed to this and some had technical issues so it wasn’t useful at all.
- Attend Registered Manager’s Meeting: Regular meetings for registered managers in your local area. I never knew these existed and think they are a great idea. The one I went to had an interesting talk from a couple of CQC inspectors. Also good for networking and keeping up to date with the industry.
- Monthly Supervisions with Line Manager: I tried to keep up with this (we usually have quarterly supervisions) but once a month is a bit too frequent, I feel.
And that’s it. There will be an end-point meeting in September to finish.
I can highly recommend this course for anyone wishing to climb the ladder of management in the health and social care sector should they decide to re-run it in the future (after all, the one I am doing is just the pilot).