UPDATE AT 29.09.09

Skills for Care is working in collaboration with Skills for Care and Development’s UK alliance partners and Skills for Health in the development of new qualifications. Units of learning and qualifications are being developed in consultation with stakeholders, through expert reference groups, to be available on the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF). Workers will be able to achieve specialist units around supporting people with a learning disability alongside more generic health and social care units.

The first units are expected to be available in Autumn 2010.

Background

In 2001, the first nationally recognised qualifications specifically aimed at workers supporting people with learning disabilities were launched to coincide with the publication of the Valuing People White Paper. Later in 2003, an additional qualification at level 4 was added to the earlier 2 qualifications that were at levels 2 and 3. All three LDAF qualifications covered a broad range of topics that complimented the generic competence based NVQ qualifications. They all focused on developing knowledge and understanding specifically related to the support of people with a learning disability.

In 2007, the level 2 and 3 qualifications reached the end of their approval period and were replaced by the Learning Disability Qualification (LDQ) Induction Award that only covers the Common Induction Standards contextualised to the support of people with learning disabilities. The level 4 qualification has had its approval extended to 2010, but is now in need of revision to reflect current changes in social care.

During 2007 and 2008 the Valuing People Support Team and Skills for Care developed and published five new learning disability focussed knowledge sets. This consultation work together with other recent reports and enquiries have highlighted a number of areas of learning that workers supporting people with learning disabilities need to know about:

The Mansell Report publishes in 2007 also noted specific areas of learning that workers supporting people in relation to positive behaviour support need beyond what is covered in existing NVQ qualifications. In 2009 Skills for Care and the Valuing People Team have worked in partnership with people who have a leaning disability, family carers, employers and trainers to develop 4 new knowledge sets;

The update of the Valuing People White Paper with the publication of Valuing People Now in early 2009 set out key priorities in relation to support for people with a learning disability.. This together with the cross government policy changes set out in Putting People First (2007) will require workers that support people with learning disabilities, regardless of their existing job role, to work in new ways. It is therefore timely to review the existing qualifications and prepare new learning disability focussed qualifications that are fit for purpose to provide high quality support to people and deliver on the new agendas.

Proposed principles to guide the development and delivery of the new QCF units and qualifications for workers supporting people with a learning disability:

The way that qualifications are organised and structured is changing. This includes all vocational qualifications in all sectors. The current National Qualifications Framework (NQF) will be replaced by the QCF. This is a government initiative across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The QCF is a new flexible way of recognising and rewarding skills and qualifications. The QCF will present units and qualifications in a simpler way and it will lead to qualifications that are flexible and meet the skills and knowledge needs of the workforce.

New Types of Working (NToW) highlights the varied way that services are structured to meet the needs of people who use services, from the individual who employs their own workers to multi-national employers. The development of the personalisation agenda means there are new skills and knowledge requirements. In addition there are anticipated changes to the requirements for registration and regulation. Adult social care is facing a number of changes such as the way services are configured to ensure choice and diversity for the people who use services.

In response to the changing needs of the sector the QCF allows for ‘spikey profile’. This enables learners to undertake learning at various levels and recognises that job roles include tasks and responsibilities at different levels.

Skills for Care propose qualifications made up of knowledge units and competence units that may require separate or combined assessment methods.

It is envisaged that the current NVQ Level 2 will be replaced by a QCF Level 2 Diploma and the current NVQ Level 3 will be replaced by a QCF Level 3 Diploma.

It is important to emphasise that workers who have undertaken relevant NVQs or VRQs have already got legitimate qualifications that demonstrate competency, and these qualifications will continue to be recognised once the new QCF is in place.

The programme for the development of new QCF units/qualifications has been divided into a number of projects. The current Health and Social Care NVQs will be replaced by Health and Social Care (HSC) Diplomas at Level 2, 3 and 4. To support the HSC Diplomas several other Awards and Certificates will be developed. These smaller qualifications will:

The current list of qualification work streams are:

As projects progress further units and qualifications may be identified and developed to meet the needs of the sector.

Many units within the new qualifications will be split on the basis of knowledge (what workers need to know) and performance (what workers need to be able to do). This will enable learners who are not able to demonstrate competence in a work setting, e.g. college, to gain credit for the knowledge units they have acquired. These workstreams enable the creation of units that can be used in various qualifications identified by the Sector Skills Council through rules of combination to avoid duplication of learning.

We are still in the early stage of developing qualifications for the QCF. As individual or groups of qualifications are developed in partnership with other sector skills councils and awarding organisations the following will be determined:

In developing the units and qualifications for workers who support people with a learning disability Skills for Care are working in collaboration with Skills for Health and other UK Alliance partners. We aim to embed the values of VPN and Putting People First – human rights, choice, control, and community inclusion. We also aim to actively support and promote the participation of people with learning disabilities and family carers in all aspects of training, leading to these units and qualifications being recognised by people with learning disabilities, family carers providers and regulators as the qualification suite for workers in the sector to aspire to.

Way forward

Skills for Care will work closely with the Valuing People Support Team, people with learning disabilities, family carers and employers to promote the learning disability induction award and all of the learning disability knowledge sets; and in developing new units and qualifications for the QCF. Samples draft units will be placed on SfC’s website for comment from the sector in addition to expert reference group feedback.

Skills for Care with Valuing People Team will work to ensure that appropriate future regulation and inspection requirements will include reference to learning disability focussed qualifications as part of arrangement to ensure high quality support for people with learning disabilities.

Glossary