Care work: Education or Experience - what's more important?

There are understandably strong feelings around what makes a good care worker.

The question is, should care worker skills be something you pick up as a volunteer or through work experience, or should there be a minimum level of education and preparation required to be a care worker professionally? Comment Like ❤️ Reply below.

We’ve published several articles about how to become care workers, care assistants and support workers. From the educational side, the common threads about NVQs, City and Guilds and Apprenticeships are well known.

What we’d like to find out is whether care workers themselves feel the education-first approach is a better fit than an on-the-job, hands-on approach to learning and developing skills?

Lots of the job postings for care workers stipulate a Level 2/3 in Health & Social Care and 2 or more years of experience.

But, by default everyone starts their working life with no experience of anything. The vocational qualification route would seem to bridge this divide, by allowing study alongside work, forming a synthesis of theory and practice that is of undoubted benefit to both the care worker and their employers and clients.

But is the ‘study as you work’ route the preferred option for care workers? We’d love to find out. In 2015 to improve the overall quality of care provided by care workers, the government of the day launched the Care Certificate.

It identified 15 common standards that all care workers needed to meet within 12 weeks of starting employment.

So, do care agencies and care homes require formal qualifications over informal experience due to the baseline in knowledge and skills?

Or do you think it is for more commercial reasons of insurance and liability on the part of the employers?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments - let's chat there!

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