Care Assistant Review

As an apprentice care assistant I learnt how to properly assist residents with their personal care and helped to improve their daily living by communicating with them and making sure they had plenty to do.

I learnt many new skills during my apprenticeship, such as what to do in an emergency, and learnt a lot about dementia and how it can affect people and their families. This apprenticeship also greatly improved my confidence to the point that I can now easily help new staff to develop their skills as well.

I really enjoyed my time as an apprentice, I met excellent people who I have the pleasure to work with, and residents who I love dearly and look forward to seeing every day. The apprenticeship scheme really improved many aspects of myself and my life.

I felt valued by Anchor as an apprentice, they really encouraged us to reach our full potential and were clear with what their and our goal was. Completing the apprenticeship and being offered a full time job after 10 months felt amazing.

The programme was really well organised, we had away days to meet with other apprentices, met with an assessor monthly to complete the NVQ and had support available from our apprenticeship advisor at any time.

I received a lot of support from my training provider, if I ever needed help or someone to talk to it was never a problem and they were always happy to help.

My employer supported me whenever I had any questions or wanted to know any policies and procedures. I was able to speak to them about any concerns and also had other colleagues to help me.

As an apprentice I received £130 a week, which could have been a lot worse considering the minimum wage for an apprentice is £3.40 an hour. This also increased to £150 a week after I had completed 50% of the programme, which was great. I also received help with a travel bursary which saved me quite a lot of money.

There were away days for the apprentices every few months where we could all meet up and do different activities, promoting the apprenticeship academy and building on team work.

Yes

This apprenticeship completely changed my life and made me a better and more confident person. Anchor really cares about their customers and the service that they are providing, and everything they do works to better the lives of the service users.

I would definitely advise others to apply to work for Anchor, it is a great company to work for that really values and recognises its staff. If you go for an interview, just be yourself as they can just tell when you have the caring personality needed for the job.