Lead Adult Care Worker Level 3 – ST0006

Lead Adult Care Worker – Level 3

Lead Adult Care Workers are the frontline staff who help adults with care and support needs to achieve their personal goals and live as independently and safely as possible, enabling them to have control and choice in their lives. In addition, Lead Adult Care Workers have responsibility for providing supervision, frontline leadership, guidance and direction for others, or working autonomously, exercising judgement and accountability.

Typical job titles include Care Officer, Care Supervisor, Senior Care Worker, Supervising Care Worker, Senior Support Worker, Relief Team Leader, Social Work Assistant, Social Services Officer, Outreach Development Worker, Community Support Worker, Community Outreach Worker, Community Development Worker, Family Support Worker or Personal Assistant. These could all specialise in a variety of areas such as learning disability, mental health, drug and alcohol misuse, homecare, dementia and end-of-life care.

Lead Adult Care Workers will make a positive difference to someone’s life when they are faced with physical, practical, social, emotional or intellectual challenges. They are expected to exercise judgement and take appropriate action to support individuals to maintain their independence, dignity and control. By providing leadership, guidance and direction at the frontline of care delivery they will be instrumental in improving the health and wellbeing of those receiving care and support. Lead Adult Care Workers will in some circumstances have delegated responsibility for the standard of care provided and may supervise the work of other care workers. This exercising of autonomy and accountability means leading and supporting others to comply with expected standards and behaviours.

Lead Adult Care Workers may work in residential or nursing homes, domiciliary care, day centres or some clinical healthcare settings. As well as covering Lead Adult Care Workers this standard also covers Lead Personal Assistants who can work at this senior level but they may only work directly for one individual who needs support and/or care services, usually within their own home.

Gateway requirements

The decision to take an apprentice through Gateway is made between the employer, training provider and apprentice, typically after 18 months on-programme. The apprentice must have completed all on-programme elements before they enter Gateway, including completion of the Level 3 Diploma in Adult Care, complete the 15 standards as set out in the Care Certificate, achieve Level 2 Literacy and Numeracy, undertake a self-evaluation in the last month of their apprenticeship, plus in the last three months of the apprenticeship collate testimonies from people who use services.

End-point Assessments

EPA consists of two discrete assessment methods. These can be delivered in any order – via remote assessment – and are weighted equally in their contribution to the overall EPA grade.

Assessment MethodDurationGrades
Situational Judgement Test90 minutesPassMeritDistinction
Professional DiscussionMaximum of 45 minutesPassMeritDistinction

An apprentice will be required to complete and achieve a minimum of a Pass in both of the end-point assessment components in addition to achieving the pre-requisite components to allow the end point to be attempted.

Situational Judgement Test

The situational judgement test will present the apprentice with a range of real-life scenarios about which the apprentice will have to answer questions in a multiple-choice format (60 Questions).

The assessment will normally be undertaken online, with questions drawn from the stated knowledge and skills elements of the standard and focus on the higher order competencies. Material may be drawn from any part of the apprenticeship standard and may also cover questions about supporting people based on the 15 Standards of the Care Certificate.

Apprentices achieving between 25 and 39 correct answers may retake the assessment on one further occasion within three months. Apprentices achieving fewer than 25 correct answers will not be allowed to retake the assignment until they have completed a professional review of performance and acted on its findings. This professional review should be undertaken by the employer and training provider.

Additionally, an apprentice achieving a score of 40 or higher on the second attempt can only be awarded a Pass grade.

Professional Discussion

The Professional Discussion will be appropriately structured to draw out the best of the apprentice?s competence and will cover the KSBs assigned to this assessment method. It is an in-depth, two-way dialogue between the apprentice and the IEA, encouraging the apprentice to explore their own practice and experience.

Feedback

The IEA will not provide the apprentice (or their manager) with a preliminary grade, as it will be subject to VTCT Skillsfirst internal quality assurance processes. VTCT Skillsfirst will aim to confirm the apprentice’s final and overall grade approximately 10 working days after the last assessment.

Certification

Once moderation is complete and the apprentice has successfully completed all EPA methods, VTCT Skillsfirst will activate certification through the Apprenticeship assessment service. Certificates will be sent directly to employer.

You can download a copy of the information on this page here

A link to the Lead Adult Care Worker standards page can be found here