Sixteen Learning Disability Community Support Workers Achieve Certification

Bermuda Hospitals Board today celebrates the graduation of sixteen Community Support Workers with a City & Guilds certificate in “Working with People Who Have Learning Disability” at the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute (MWI).

The graduates are: Betty Azzario, Veronica Douglass, Faith Gilbert, Lori-Lynn Hill, Brenda Hollis, Dionne Lambe, Lauralyn Ming, Teresa Ming, Je’Duntee Minors, Natalie Nesbitt, Louis Reynolds, Michael Robinson, Atiba Simons, Leroy Smith. Michael Stirling and Beth-Ann Tucker.

City & Guilds is the UK’s leading vocational qualification awarding body, offering more than 500 qualifications in over 28 industry sectors, through 8,500 approved centres in around 100 countries. Following an on-site review by City & Guilds representatives in 2005, MWI was approved to become a City & Guilds Assessment Centre for working with people who have disabilities. This status has been reconfirmed up to 2014, following the regular required evaluation by a City & Guilds External Verifier.

MWI’s Learning Disability Directorate offers a range of services to individuals from 18 years of age who have moderate to severe learning disabilities. Services include day services and inpatient and respite admissions. This directorate also has a network of fifteen staffed homes across the Island that offer residential group home living. Eighty-four Community Support Workers are employed in the Learning Disability directorate and they support nursing staff in the day to day care and activities that take place both on and off campus.

“At MWI we are committed to continuous quality improvement,” says Patrice Dill, Chief Operating Officer at MWI. “In all our directorates we aim to provide the best service we can and so providing our staff with access to education and development opportunities is key. This is why we maintain our status as a City & Guilds Assessment Centre for working with People who have Learning Disabilities. The benefit is evident in that well over half of our Community Support Workers have now gone through this certification programme. It is pleasing to see our Community Support Workers take advantage of this continuing educational opportunity. Gaining Certification not only will enhance and bring credibility to their personal practice and performance as service providers, but in turn will improve the quality of services for the Learning Disability Service Users.”

“I am very proud of our new Community Support Workers and their commitment to ensuring we provide the highest quality service,” comments Learning Disability Clinical Director, Mr Michael Murray, adds. “Our learning disability service users are now mostly housed in the community where staff support and care for them in a home setting rather than on site at MWI. This helps improve comfort, dignity and quality of life and was commended as a leading practice in our recent survey by Accreditation Canada. We have amazing nursing aids working in this area. It is mandatory at MWI that all Community Support Workers in this directorate gain this certification, but it is the Community Support Workers who put in the hard work to succeed and achieve it. I am very pleased to be celebrating another 16 graduates today.”

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