Have you heard about Skills for Care’s Individual Employer / Personal Assistant training fund? The countdown is on to the deadline to apply on 15 March 2024 and the fund is currently undersubscribed!
This fund can pay for training, travel, and replacement support costs for training undertaken by PAs and / or the IE (or their legal representative if they don’t do the employing) themselves.
If someone meets the eligibility criteria (basically that they are an IE, do employ staff, live in England and are funded by themselves or a Direct Payment – this year NOT a personal health budget sadly) then they could apply to this fund. We make decisions in four weeks (it could be within a week actually so long as they fill in the form right and supply the 2 or 3 pieces of evidence needed) and they get the money upfront of the training (they can claim afterwards but there’s always a risk that the fund will have run out, so we suggest claim first)
We can help people fill in the form - hopefully it’s fairly simple - and with it we need;
-
Evidence that you are actually an employer (like an employer’s liability certificate)
-
Evidence of the cost / content of the training (a quote or a screenshot of the trainer’s brochure or similar)
-
And if the employer doesn’t manage the employment themselves, then something like LPA or court of protection statement showing that someone else acts for them
It can pay for the training itself, travel and replacement PA costs.
So please share with anyone or any groups that might be interested? The deadline for applications is 17:00 on Friday 15 March 2024 and any training funded must be started by 30 April 2024.
Marie Lovell
National Practice Innovation Lead
Workforce Capacity and Transformation
pronouns she / her, feel free to tell me yours
Skills for Care