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Registered Manager's Solution

Star rating 3/5

National Extension College. Tel 01223 400399 or e-mail info@nec.ac.uk, complete pack £125 + VAT

This pack provides an all-in-one toolkit to enable care home managers to gain their NVQ4, and comply with the national minimum standards in 2005, writes John Burton.

The pack consists of an evidence builder, a candidate's guide and seven themed workbooks on managing the care service, finances, performance, operations, meetings and information, developing yourself and others, and continuous improvement. Phew!

By its nature, this sort of training resource is comprehensive - "everything you need to know" - and it has to repeat much of what you will find in similar literature for NVQs 2 and 3. I baulk at the idea of the "solution" in the title; the job is never that cut and dried.

The pack is designed not so much to help you to do the manager's job competently as to measure up to an NVQ assessment. Some managers may excel at the job but find the assessment more than they can handle. There are many practical ideas that will help or stimulate good management practice; and there are a few duds that come from not appreciating the realities of the work.

Reading the pack made me think how wrong we are about training in social care. We've taken this difficult, complex and sensitive area of work to bits, and then forgotten what it looks like as a whole, how it works and what it is for. We make experienced, competent practitioners jump through hoops designed by people who have never done the job.

However, Registered Manager's Solution is well produced and easy to use and, if you have to jump through hoops, it will show you how.
John Burton is an independent social care consultant.

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Parents Speak

Star rating 5/5

Neath Port Talbot Parenting Matters Project. Tel 01639 620771 or write to the project at 4A Queen Street, Neath SA11 1DL, £12 including p&p

This video gives potential group members an insight into the working of the Parenting Matters Project group, writes Jeannie Gordon. But it will also be a useful resource for other parenting projects. It is a positive tool to use when trying to encourage parents to attend a parenting group as it shows them expressing concerns in a comprehensible way and dismisses the myth that "only bad parents" attend such a group.

The video does show parents in a group targeted at parents of teens. Nevertheless this video could be used for groups of parents with children of all ages, especially when trying to relax parents' fears about confidentiality, learning expectations and the practical process of group life.

The video is only 20 minutes long and has a real and honest feel about it. I will use this tape not only with parents but also as a training tool with professionals.

Jeannie Gordon is clinical nurse (parenting) at North Essex Mental Health Trust Partnership.