Regional Trainer Mark heads to the Great British Care Awards 2020

Consensus are delighted to share that Mark Thomson, Regional Trainer for the South East, has been named as a finalist for the ‘Workforce Development Award’ in the East of England regional finals of the Great British Care Awards 2020.

The Great British Care Awards are a series of regional events throughout England and are a celebration of excellence across the care sector. The awards pay tribute to those individuals who have demonstrated outstanding excellence within their field of work.

The ‘Workforce Development Award’ acknowledges the importance of the role of workforce development within the care service and looks for a person who has shown incredible enthusiasm and determination in identifying training and development needs of care staff, establishing rolling training programmes, searching for and gaining funding, and proving their ability to enthuse and energise staff to attend and request training.

As a regional trainer for the South East; on average, annually Mark supports 400 different colleagues across Consensus’ South and Wales division with a wide variety of training requirements. This includes conducting both virtual and face-to-face training sessions in at least 30 different subjects, ranging from introductions to learning disability to various leadership courses.

As part of the Training Team Mark has supported with delivery of Manager Development modules for the Developing Inspirational Leaders Programme, writing training perspectives detailing all the learning objectives and producing documentation for accreditations.

Mark was nominated for the Award by Carol Corstin, Head of Learning and Organisational Development at Consensus. In nominating Mark, Carol said, “Mark joined Consensus’ Regional Training Team in September 2015. Throughout this time, he has remained committed to the role of developing support teams across the South Region with a passion for quality, flexible and knowledgeable training.”

“The nomination was in recognition of the hard work and dedication Mark has shown in setting up a bespoke Training facility at Stepping Stones where he has sourced low cost or free equipment to enable him to train People Moving Instructors from within Consensus to a high standard to enable them to train colleagues within the Services. This ensures safety and problem solving are on hand,” adds Carol.

Mark said, “I feel very honoured to have been nominated for this award by Carol. I absolutely love my job – it is a privilege to work closely with a wide variety of colleagues from across the organisation to support their ongoing learning and development and in turn, achieve the best possible outcomes for the people we support.”

Mark took part in a virtual judging day held on Friday, 20th November and has been invited to attend a glittering Gala event in April 2021, where the winners will be announced.

There were twenty-one categories available for nomination, which represent all areas of the social care sector, whether it be older people or specialist services, residential or home care. From frontline staff such as care workers and care managers to people who have made an impact in other ways such as training and innovation.