Lockdown Learning…

Following last week’s post about Online Learning at Work Week and Mental Health Awareness Week, I wanted to go back to something we started looking at a few weeks back when I wrote the “Not April Fools” post.

I shared how we had learnt that we could do things differently, things that previously we thought we could not do and the current set of circumstances had brought out the best in some of us.  We found that with a bit of creativity and and some effort, actually “we can do that” and that sort of became a motto, “we can do that”.

Some of the questions I posed in that post went along the lines of, “what have we learnt by having to do things differently?”.  Lots of people now are talking about the “new normal” and how things will be different in the future, when some sense of normality returns (whenever that will be).

So, if things will be different, what can we do now to get ready for the “new normal?”  I know our new normal will include: “we can do that”.  I hope our new normal will include those newly discovered levels of effort and creativity and I know our new normal will definitely include the knowledge that our business continuity plan worked, but that is not really where I am going with this.

How can we harness the amazing team spirit and morale that I have seen and heard so much about, with members of staff going way beyond the extra mile.  How can we harness the effort and creativity we didn’t know we had until circumstances forced us to come up with ideas and solutions?

If we really do “learn something every day” as the saying goes, then let’s make sure we put it into practice as well.  It is one thing to learn something, but the true test, where the “rubber meets the road” if you like, is what we do with that learning, how we apply it and how it impacts on our day-to-day practice.

I know you are all doing loads of eLearning at the moment because face-to-face training is not something you can currently access (nor will you be able to for some time to come).  So, when you are doing the eLearning, think about how it might impact on your practice in the future and how it will impact on the lives of people you support; in the end, that is what it’s really all about, not the certificate….