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TRAINING AND EDUCATION


The Personal Touch


Helen Walton, Head of Operations at specialist dementia care group Church Farm Care, explains how its approach to recruitment has put them in good stead for such an unprecedented national emergency, and why it will benefit other care providers to have a tailored hiring process.


The past 12 months have been some of the toughest in living memory for the care sector, as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to keep homes in lockdown. Now, more than ever, it’s crucial that care homes are attracting high-quality staff to deliver excellent support to vulnerable and elderly people around the country.


This is especially true for dementia care, where staff are supporting residents experiencing varying stages of their journey with dementia, from having an awareness of the pandemic through to providing support to both the resident and their families during end-of-life care.


Finding the right staff is absolutely at the heart of being able to provide a service that exceeds expectations. It’s what makes our family members really feel at home. Carers must be prepared to step into the world of our residents and make them feel safe, particularly when it comes to dementia. Therefore, the ability to emphasise and relate to others is a fundamental part of our staff culture and the recruitment process.


Discussing life experiences and attempting to draw out the preferred personal qualities of candidates is crucial, and our interview process is designed around this. We tailor our questions to be around the individual candidate and their self- awareness and emotional intelligence, rather than focussing on


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professional experience and qualifications. For instance, we ask them to tell us about the greatest emotional experience in their life. Those who have experienced adversity are oſten those who relate deeply to others.


We’ve found that this approach allows us to identify the best individuals who will be able to emotionally open up to our residents and deliver our intimate family-based approach to care.


We have four homes in Nottingham – three of which offer specialist dementia care within innovative and supportive environments. Our model of care is all about us joining residents in their home – we are guests where they live, not staff. As such, the team don’t wear nametags or uniforms and day-to-day tasks are carried out discreetly rather than leading the day. So, in some cases, those candidates with less care sector experience can make better carers than those with more, as they have less to unlearn from previous employment.


The emotionally-led model of care that our team leads is not ‘one size fits all’. We create ‘households’ within our homes based on their life experiences and interests, as well as the progression of their dementia, which we have found boosts wellbeing and quality of life overall. We make sure to match staff personalities to these households so it’s also important that we consider this during recruitment – will they fit in with the family?


www.tomorrowscare.co.uk


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