Date: Tuesday 1st December 2015
Time: 10:30am – 3pm. Registration and refreshments from 10am
Venue: Mercure London Bridge

Health Education Kent Surrey and Sussex (HEKSS) is undertaking a workforce development project for people working with clients and patients with intellectual disabilities. The aim is to create a sustainable and secure workforce supply, for people that have intellectual disabilities, who require support from and / or access to services across Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

HEKSS has commissioned Skills for Care to help facilitate some of this important work, and we would jointly like to invite you to attend a one day conference which will look at planning for the learning disabilities workforce across the full range of adult services including residential, supported living and specialist. Transformation, personalisation and the development of community based services are at the heart of quality. The learning disabilities workforce needs to have access to the right education and training, that acknowledges the skills and values that are required, in the right place at the right time.

As part of this work, Skills for Care are undertaking research on the current state of the learning disabilities workforce for HEKSS. During this conference we will be presenting our findings from the research and finding out from you what your issues and challenges are for the workforce. We will also be discussing how we can best maintain contact in the future, and how to move this work forward.

We will be covering the needs of both the registered and unregistered workforce including PAs and we will be looking at the following issues:

• Recruitment and retention
• continuing professional development requirements
• the availability of progression routes for training and development.
• listening to the perspectives of those who use services and their families

Target Audience: Those who should consider registering are people who have responsibility for the learning disabilities workforce whether it is in the NHS, or other environments including independent, private and charitable organisations e.g. Registered Managers, Workforce Leads, Service Managers, Learning and Development Leads, Occupational Therapists. People who conduct care assessments and those responsible for the workforce for clinical or specialist services

If you would like to attend the event, click here to book your organisations space

If you have not yet had the opportunity to share your thoughts on how the community should evolve do it now:

The evaluation form can be accessed by clicking on the following link: https://goo.gl/clMPe1

It will only take 5 minutes and we need to hear what you have to say

The closing date will be the 13th of November 2015, after this point your views and opinions will be analysed and the finding along with the future direction of the CoP will be posted here.

Thank you all in advance for taking the time to share

Click on the green button below to have your say

As part of the 2015 Community of Practice Conference in June, we asked for volunteers to take a lead in the running of the Community and planning for the future.

On Friday 9th October this group met, to review the Community’s purpose and to develop a shared vision of the way forward.  Above is the group activity we undertook, which has been themed. We now would like to get your feedback on this and some of the possible ways we might all move forward together.

The themes have helped develop a short survey, which we are inviting you to complete and share. The survey can be found by clicking on the picture below.

Your support with this would be very much appreciated.

Thanks to Rags at East Kent Hospitals for sharing the below flyer with the Community of Practice for the event with Ros Blackburn on 28th October. Feel free to book a place. You don’t need to book places.

Canterbury and Swale, Community Learning Disabilities team are looking for an enthusiastic physiotherapist.

Working alongside a highly specialist Band 7 physiotherapist as part of an integrated multidisciplinary team. The post will be based at Brook House, Whitstable and will cover the Canterbury and Swale Locality.

The successful candidate will be a part of the integrated multidisciplinary team including nurses, care managers, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists, carry and manage their own caseload, supervise physiotherapy assistants and will be required to attend team meetings on a fortnightly basis.

The role requires the person to demonstrate sound clinical skills, have an understanding of posture management, specialist seating, wheelchairs and orthotics and have developed good communication/liaison skills. To be able to manage time and caseloads effectively.

The team provide strong support from both the multidisciplinary and physiotherapy teams.

Vacancy