Our commitment is that all our employees and volunteers will have three or more days learning per year. We would not expect the learning to stop if you reach your three-days target. You should be always exploring ways to integrate learning in your everyday work. That's why it's important to keep discussing your learning activities with your line manager
Learning opportunities
Learning can be any activity that has a positive impact on the children, young people and families we work with, whether you're a frontline worker or supporting our frontline work.
Learning doesn't have to happen away from your everyday work and it can also happen in bite-sized chunks to make it as accessible as possible for all employees and volunteers.
Good learning doesn't always mean attending training courses; it doesn't always need more resources. Talk to your line manager about your ideas of how to best utilise the three days' learning commitment given your job role – it will look different in different regions, departments and roles.
We will share ideas and examples of learning activities on Workplace to help to build momentum and understanding of what great learning can look like over shorter periods of time and with limited resources.
Examples of learning
A key element of learning is sharing knowledge so that it can make a greater impact.
Here are some examples:
- a project worker sharing with their team what they learnt at a conference about child sexual exploitation
- a shop assistant who talks to a young volunteer about their experience working for Barnardo’s and develops a process to help volunteers feel part of the team
- an administrator who discovers a faster way to use a software system on a course and shares this with their team to increase efficiency
- a finance assistant who searches online for a cheaper alternative and shares this with their team to encourage good stewardship of money
Measuring learning
The three-day learning commitment will be measured through the performance development review (PDR) processes. However, learning should be a part of every supervision and one-to-one session you have with your line manager. In supervision, you can explore what learning activities you want to engage with and what the impact would be on your role, your team, service etc.
Part-time employees and volunteers
The learning commitment can be proportional to the amount of hours that you work or volunteer.
For example, someone who works three days a week (60% of a full time equivalent) would be looking at a proportional three-day learning commitment of 1.8 days (60% x 3 days). In discussion with their line manager, they may aim for 2 days' learning commitment.
A volunteer who works one day a week (about 7 hours) would be looking at 4.2 hours for the learning commitment. The line manager might suggest that they aim for a half day (4 hours) of learning activity.
You can download a poster (in English or Welsh) setting out our commitment in graphic form, below. Also available to download are examples of learning activities and how to record your learning.