Qualification and standards updates for managers and employers

Following sector feedback changes have been made to the assessments of the following qualifications:

• Level 2 Health and Social Care: Core
• Level 2 Children’s Care, Play, Learning and Development: Core

The changes can be found on the Health and Care Learning Wales website.

Changes have also been made to the Level 2 and Level 3 Health and Social Care and Children’s Care, Play, Learning and Development Practice qualifications.

You can find out more on the Health and Care Learning Wales website.

What’s changing?

The digital workbooks site for the All Wales induction framework (AWIF) for health and social care, which was previously known as the ‘Principles and values award’ will close on 31 October.

What this means

From now until 31 October, if you already have an account on the site, you can download and save any workbooks that have been fully completed and approved so you can use them at a later date.

After 31 October, you’ll no longer have access to your account.

Why is this changing?

We’re closing the site in October because social care workers can no longer use the AWIF as a way to register with us.

Social care workers can now only register if they have the required qualification for their role or if they’ve been assessed by their employer as being suitable to register. Employer assessment allows employers to endorse their workers’ application to register after assessing them against a list of competencies.

We’re developing a new digital resource to support the employer assessment route, which we’re hoping to make available later this year.

If you have any questions, contact us at induction@socialcare.wales

Covid-19 has led to some learners taking longer to complete their qualifications and apprenticeship frameworks. There has been a backlog of learners working towards their qualifications and frameworks, and some employers have found it difficult to access new qualifications and apprenticeship places for their workers. But, learning providers are committed to offering their support:

• there has been an increase in assessors accessing settings to observe learners and gather evidence and employers have supported learners to complete assessment tasks
• the number of people completing the apprenticeship framework has risen since September 2022, which will release learning provider time to support new learners
• access to qualification and apprenticeship places should increase in the coming weeks and months.

You can ask your usual learning provider for advice about places and you can contact one of the main Welsh Government apprenticeship contract holders for information. There’s also a search facility on the Health and Care Learning Wales website where you can search for learning providers in your area.

If you have a question or if you can't find what you're looking for get in touch with us.