National Apprenticeship Week

It’s National Apprenticeship Week!

Strode Park Foundation offers a whole range of apprenticeships to our employees whether they are in nursing, caring, catering, or office based. If we believe the course will be beneficial to our workers, we are more than happy to support them.

Strode Park aims to find great courses that will allow our employees to grow in their careers and help them expand their skill set. We caught up with one of our employees Sherri Frier who is a Lead Care and Support worker at Strode Park House and is currently doing a Nurse Associate apprenticeship, which she will complete over the next two years.

Sherri’s apprenticeship is a combination of work placements (including her normal workplace here at Strode) and one day at University. Sherri acknowledges there have been some challenges including having to work remotely for her apprenticeship, due to COVID-19, however overall, she believes it has been very rewarding, and the course has been able to fit well around her working at the Herne care home. She said: “The apprenticeship gives me that chance to learn whilst I work without being tied to a computer all the time.”

Sherri also noted that the flexibility these courses provide made it a lot less daunting than going to university for her and is helping her achieve her aspiration of a career in nursing and recommends it as a great option for those who are not as keen on the more traditional route of university.

The Nursing Associate role is a new role in the nursing family and once qualified Sherri will be registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. This does not replace the Registered Nurse’s role but is a supportive role and a bridge between Care and Support Workers and Registered Nurses.

Sherri said: “It has definitely given me a better insight to what is expected of the nurses and also when I’m caring for poorly people within the home it helps expand my skills to care for these people.”

The Nurse Associate Apprenticeship is just one of many courses we at Strode have encouraged our employees to take on. We love seeing our employees grow within their roles and achieving new milestones, even ones they had never considered previously, and we are excited to see how these new skills are implemented into their roles.