The effective implementation of induction in social care is a significant step towards the delivery of high-quality care and support. This can be achieved by ensuring that staff achieve acceptable levels of competence to practice and show commitment to practices that value diversity and empowerment. All staff in social care, including students and agency staff, should receive an induction. Explore the links below to learn more.
Staff induction audit
Why is induction important?Open
Induction is crucial to effective retention, as a failure to properly support and assess performance during this period can result in losing or demotivating the worker at a crucial time. In disciplinary cases it can be more difficult to challenge bad practice if expectations and necessary learning have not been communicated properly as part of the induction process.
The Care Quality Commission is the regulator for health and social care. It has published a document, Essential standards of quality and safety, which highlights the importance and value of strong and comprehensive induction.
In 2010, Skills for Care refreshed the common induction standards to ensure that they were fit for purpose and reflect current policy and practice. The standards are intended for use by people entering social care, and those changing roles. They replace the common induction standards 2005.
Common induction standards are designed to be met within a 12-week period to enable social care workers to demonstrate how they provide high-quality care and support. They provide recognition for their work, and prepare them for entry into future training and qualifications. If carried out effectively, evidence from common induction standards can be used towards the Health and Social Care Diploma.
Common induction standardsOpen
These map to the mandatory units of the new Health and Social Care Diploma to ensure that there is consistency of approach for the workforce.
There are eight standards:
- Standard 1 Role of the health and social care worker
- Standard 2 Personal development
- Standard 3 Communicate effectively
- Standard 4 Equality and inclusion
- Standard 5 Principles for implementing duty of care
- Standard 6 Principles of safeguarding in health and social care
- Standard 7 Person-centred support
- Standard 8 Health and safety in an adult social care setting
Each standard contains a number of areas of knowledge that social care workers need to know about before they can work unsupervised. Managers have a duty to ensure that newly appointed staff are sufficiently competent to meet the required outcomes in each knowledge area. If you would like to know more about how to approach induction check out SCIE ‘s resource: Understanding Common Induction. It also shows how the learning outcomes from induction match CQC essential standards.
To help identify whether staff have learning needs in relation to basic skills, SCIE and Skills for Care produced the Care Skillsbase. This is an easy-to-use web resource that can highlight whether and in what way a person needs support with numeracy or literacy. It also provides links to further supporting materials.
BESCLO stands for Basic European Social Care Learning Outcomes. These are similar to the common induction standards and are an attempt to have a common understanding of the basic elements of social care. BESCLO is based on a human rights model of care and covers evidence of learning in the following areas:
- the values of social care
- promoting the quality of life for the individuals you support
- working with risk
- understanding your role as a care worker
- safety at work
- communicating positively
- recognising and responding to abuse and neglect
- developing as a care worker.
Manager induction standardsOpen
In 2008, Skills for Care published manager induction standards. These are intended for use by all 'new' managers of adult social care, that is, those new to management and those new in post who have previously managed other social care services. They can also be used as a development tool for those aspiring to management.
The social care management induction standards have been developed to meet an identified gap in the overall range of products that support the national strategy for leadership and management development. They are part of the extended suite of products that support the leadership and management strategy, including Providing effective supervision (Skills for Care and CWDC 2007)..
Key additional resourcesOpen
- Skills for Care and CWDC (2007) Providing effective supervision, Leeds: Skills for Care and CWDC
- ACAS (2007) Recruitment and induction, London: ACAS
- Skills for Care (2008) Management induction standards, Leeds: Skills for Care
- Care Council for Wales (2008) Social care induction framework, Cardiff: Care Council for Wales
- Skills for Care (2010) Common induction standards, Leeds: Skills for Care
- Care Quality Commission (2010) Guidance about compliance: Essential standards of quality and safety, Newcastle upon Tyne: Care Quality Commission