Continuing Professional Development
Education is essential to carrying out your role efficiently and safely. The best performing Healthcare Assistants will be those with a curiosity to know more and to study. Presently there is little incentive to study but that is about to change. The most that is required of you in many areas of work is to have completed two modules at QQI Level 5. If we want to have a career in healthcare, it is essential to have the relevant knowledge.
Even if you have the QQI Level 5 Major Award you still need to continue reading and studying, as methods of care are continually changing and improving, and you must keep up for the sake of your care recipients.
Being able to deal with emotional issues is important especially when caring for people who live alone. You may be the only person they see on a regular basis and when they come to trust you, they will open up to you. What can you remember from the module Human Growth and Development, if you studied it? Very little, I guess. That is the module dealing with human psychology.
When you Join AHCAI you have access to several essential modules to study for free and receive a certificate of course completion. Having these certificates in your portfolio shows commitment and passion for your discipline.
Other disciplines in the health services have qualifications for which they are respected. You HCA’s also want respect and education is one of the ways to gain it. You don’t have to wait for the powers that be to instruct you to study you can take the initiative. Meantime the AHCAI is working on a two year, industry led, program at HE Level 6 for HCA’s.