Abstract:

In 2019 stakeholders in the Northwest of England identified gaps in the existing knowledge and skills of the social care workforce required to meet the complex health and social care needs of residents living within a care home setting. In response, a pilot programme of education was developed colligiatively between a Higher Education Institution and stakeholders providing a quality assured, standardised education provision which was easily accessible and specific to those within the social care workforce. Despite our best efforts, the initial pilot study revealed that challenges still existed and were limiting access and engagement. This pilot study of digital education ascertained that the emergence of the Covid -19 pandemic, highlighted the many challenges experienced by this social care workforce in accessing educational interventions and engaging with teaching and learning specific to their field of practice, and key findings indicated that the enrolment process, accessibility to training, time constraints and relevance to practice were prime concerns often preventing engagement.

In order to better understand the student’s perceptions and experiences of learning through digital technologies and the challenges that existed, models of digital delivery were explored with a view to redesigning the delivery and original learning content. The literature suggests that successful digital delivery is dependent upon many factors including the relativity of technology to the intended audience. Employees within the health and social care workforce often adopt a humanistic approach to their caring responsibilities and thrive on personal interactions. Therefore, an intervention to facilitate peer-to-peer interaction was developed to increase interaction amongst participants whilst promoting socialisation and collaboration suggesting that the simplicity and consideration of intrinsic, social and external motivations are contributory factors when considering successful digital education within social care.

Initial data is suggesting that active engagement amongst participants depended on the availability of electronic devices, ease of access to the learning content and level of interaction with fellow participants thus providing an opportunity for online socialisation and peer-to-peer feedback. In addition, the application process and its content were restructured providing a simple one-step approach to accessing teaching and learning resources. Interestingly, the number of those now enrolling onto the asynchronous learning package has resulted in a 209% increase.

Keywords:

Digital Models for Education, Asynchronous Learning, Social Care.