Supporting Apprentice Key Workers through the Pandemic

February 17, 2021

Cambridge Regional College applauds assessors and apprentices during National Apprenticeship Week as they continue to face the challenges of being key workers through the pandemic.

The challenges that our frontline workers have faced during the pandemic are vast, but for apprentices this has been a learning curve like no other as they negotiate work-based learning on the frontline.

CRC Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) for Health and Social Care and care home Registered Nurse, Julie Thorogood said: “It was important to me that our apprentices were fully supported during the pandemic and being the IQA for the apprenticeship programme enabled me to monitor progress through the additional pressures being faced at work.”

“It has been a difficult and demanding time, and one of the biggest challenges has been in ensuring the apprentices received their 20 per cent off-the-job hours when demand for staff in the care home was at an all-time high.

On a positive note, I have been able to observe practical knowledge and behaviours develop over this period, as the added pressures of working through a pandemic have resulted in new competencies and skills evolving in the workplace. This experience will mean the apprentices will leave us with an enhanced skill set, something that the care home has benefited from greatly.”

The challenges faced have resulted in different outcomes for the two care home apprentices, with one progressing onto a training scheme with Addenbrookes Hospital and the other remaining on the programme to continue with her apprenticeship.