Acacia delivers Skills for Care training to help COVID-19 response

Here at Acacia Training, it’s been very important to us to do all we can to help the health and social care sector adapt and increase staffing capacity in care homes as part of the response to COVID-19.

Skills for Care Funded Training

Thanks to funding from Skills for Care, we have now delivered our fully funded intensive training to employers at no cost to them, as part of the response to the pandemic in care homes.

This included assisting 44 care companies with rapid induction training for new staff, delivering four days of intensive online induction training for new recruits, volunteers and those returning to care roles.

Our team also provided important training for existing staff in a further 40 care settings, covering infection prevention and control, safeguarding, moving and handling, basic life support, health and safety awareness, food safety, medication, and fire safety.

So far almost 250 staff have been trained, with more than 84 employers in the health and social care sector throughout England.

Cheryl Wallace has delivered the training through a combination of zoom lessons and online learning through Acacia Training’s e-learning platform. Cheryl explains:

“The health and social care sector has experienced significant staffing challenges during the pandemic. Constantly evolving government guidelines, increased staffing ratios needed to achieve social distancing, and staff shortages due to illness, shielding or self-isolating are just some of the challenges.

All of our trainings have been regularly updated – for example reflecting changing advice regarding PPE. During this very busy and challenging time, our clients have needed a fast, thorough and efficient response to make sure that staff can be inducted or upskilled quickly particularly in areas such as safeguarding and infection control.”

She adds: “We have so far delivered more than 366 courses to learners ranging in age from 18 to their 60s. Feedback from care sector employers is that the quick access to funded training has been invaluable.

We’re thankful to Skills for Care for enabling us to deliver this fully funded and important training to a wide range of health and social care employers during a period of intense challenge.

Acacia Training is currently operating a waiting list for any companies interested in accessing the training if more funding becomes available – contact us for more information.