'Developing your own skills network' - Tricia Lacey and Emma Gibbs, at the CDG National Conference in Birmingham on 18 July 2012. Both are members of the West Midlands Health Libraries Network Learning and Development Group - they shared their policy of 'librarians training librarians' and talked about how they provide training, mentoring and job-shadowing schemes.
ICT Role in 21st Century Education & its Challenges.pptx
Patricia Lacey and Emma Gibbs CDG2012 Developing your own skills network
1. Developing your own skills
network
Trish Lacey and Emma Gibbs
West Midlands Health Libraries Network
Learning and Development Group
2. Who are we?
Trish Lacey and
Emma Gibbs
Learning and
Development
Group
Para-professionals
Organising Group
3. Why do we do training for
ourselves?
Specialised service
Greater support in
numbers
Learn from peers
Help to gain skills
needed to progress in
your career
4. What the L&D group provides
Knowledge sharing
events
Job shadowing
opportunities
Mentoring
Paraprofessionals
organising group
ACLIP support group
5. Knowledge sharing events
Usually a whole day
on topic decided from
survey
Open to all interested
Presentations/worksho
ps given by other
professionals with
knowledge in that
area
6. Job shadowing
Number of trusts signed
up to the scheme
Opportunity to share
good practice
Gain experience of
different job roles and
organisations
Share knowledge with
other librarians
One-day
7. Mentoring
Opportunities to
become a mentor.
Or opportunities to
contact someone to
mentor you.
9. ACLIP Support Group
5 members
working towards
their ACLIP
qualification
Facilitated by a
mentor/ coach
Supported by
successful
candidate
10. Impact – what do I gain from it
(staff)
Improve CV
Good opportunity to try new things
Increase your skills
Increase your knowledge
Increase your confidence by trying
something new
Take control of your own career
progression
11. Impact – what do I gain from it
(Managers)
Use your staff
effectively
A good return on
investment
Increased staff
development can be
used for KSF and to
meet targets
12. Practical Tips – Group
organisation
One chair
Meet 4 times a year
twice face to face. Twice
tele-conference
Email used as a form of
communication between
these meetings
13. Practical Tips-organising events
Use feedback/ staff
needs analysis
Plan
Involve
Capacity
Sharing
Supporting
Ask for help!
Evaluate
Say thank you
14. The Downside
It may be an add-on
to your main job…
It’s busy
You might feel pushed
from pillar to post
You have to be all
things to all attendees!
The day doesn’t end at
5pm
15. It’s worth doing….
Sense of achievement
“feel good factor”
Team building
Encouragement
Great for your personal
development
16. The future
Fledgling relationship
with East of England
and East Midlands NHS
E- learning for staff
development
Learning needs
assessment
It is hoped that the L&D group can help with some of the barriers professionals face with career progression, some of these barriers include:Lack of cheap training opportunities in order to gain relevant qualifications.Experience for higher paid jobs is difficult to obtain (for example budget management, managing staff etc). Cost of professional qualificationsLack of opportunities to gain experience in current jobOften Librarians make up a small section of a larger institution, sometimes it can be one person working on their own or just a handful, because of this the specialised training we need is often not provided and outside courses can be expensive. By joining together we can offer support and guidance to others working within the same profession. After all who better to teach us how to manage a library budget than someone who already does this (that’s just one example). By having knowledge sharing events it allows others to share their experiences and offers help and guidance to others in areas of practice relevant to this profession. I honestly believe that the best people to offer me training and support in my career are other Librarians who know about the issues that we face.
The Learning and developing group provides a numbers of support activities in order to help the developed of Health information staff across the west midlands. The following slides will take a close look at each of these areas:Knowledge sharing eventsJob shadowing opportunitiesMentoringParaprofessionals organising groupACLIP support groupI feel its important to highlight here that a lot of the ground work for these activities was originally done at the SHA when they had a knowledge service project manager. The current members of the L&D group have always been part of the group but a lot of the ground work (creating documents, setting thing up, etc) was done by this person. With the recent changes to the NHS rather than see this group lost the work and maintenance of these activities is now solely with the members of the L&D group.
A yearly survey is usually carried out by the chair of the group in order to establish areas of interested. The most recent one being a knowledge sharing event on ‘Marketing’. The day contained three workshops on:customer engagementwriting a marketing strategymarketing tools.The typical agenda for the day looks like this:Usually starting around 10am and finishes by 3:30, this is in order to allow others suitable time for travel. RegistrationIntroduction and news from around the region (each patch to give a five minute round up)Workshops Parallel sessions (each session to run concurrently – delegates to choose options 1-3 in order of preference) to run for 40 minutes. Feedback from morning sessionsLunch (Bring your own) and networkingParallel session (for 3rd choice not taken in the morning)Marketing mix up and bite sized marketing wall (opportunity for looking at examples of other library’s work and sign up to receive a copy, plus post it notes for ‘bite sized marketing ideas’ to be collated and emailed out after the event)Evaluation CloseFeedback from this day:“These events are a great opportunity for learners to gain valuable skills and knowledge; and even share ideas for other libraries to develop or put into practice”“Having returned from the event I adopted the customer engagement methods demonstrated and it has proven extremely successful, for example when I delivered induction sessions before I was often asked how to register with the library/ Athens etc but did not have the documentation with me, I now go fully prepared using the prepared portfolio idea that was discussed at the knowledge sharing event” “I found the marketing policies very useful, it demonstrated the benefits it brought to trust and how it shaped the way services are marketing in a strategic context” “we have identified two area where the customer engagement tools kit can be used in order to promote the library service”Practical tips for organisation of these events are discussed later on in this presentation.
The Library Shadowing Scheme is an excellent opportunity to share good practice and gain experience of the different job roles and services offered by the libraries in the region. The scheme involves a member of library staff spending one-day shadowing staff from another Library.Why participate in the scheme?Benefits:Experience of both similar and different job rolesExperience of a different organisationSharing knowledge with other librariesOpportunity to make new contactsEncourages critical reflection of own job roleA learning opportunity that will aid with professional development. This may be of particular use for staff working towards the NVQ in Information and Library Services or studying for a degree in Librarianship. Process:List of libraries who have signed up for the scheme, can be used to determined suitable place for placement. You need to contact the library in question to arrange a suitable date.Once you have agreed a date for your visit, complete the application form, send to L&D group who send this onto the host library. You will then be sent an evaluation form to complete once you have visited your host library. Once your evaluation form has been received you will be issued with a certificate to record your participation in the schemeFeedback:“for me, the most significant aspect of the visit was gaining insight into how a library services, which is very different to a health library service, is managed at an operational level”“The effect of the visit on my future career is clear. I have no plans or desire to manage a service. I am satisfied to operate at my current level. The visit gave good insight into managing a service, however it has not convinced me that it is a future career path”.
The Mentoring Network is open to all library staff within the West Midlands region. The mentoring network is a self-sustaining network supported by Learning & Development Group.Mentoring can support individuals through a career transition such as wanting or moving into a new role, studying a qualification or taking on new responsibilities.Its NOT CILIP mentoring for chartership, for this you need to contact CILIP.Benefits:For the mentor:Demonstrate transferable skills – managing people, communication skills.Professional development opportunity.Share experience and learn from your mentee.For the mentee:Opportunity to discuss professional issues.Getting support and advice on working more effectively.Feedback:“From a personal point of view I have found it incredibly useful to have someone outside of where I work to help me focus on my career and where to go next. Its useful to have another professional to discuss issues with and to help formulate a plan of what to do next in order to progress in my career. I now feel more in control of my own career path and that I have some direction”.I will now hand you over to Emma who is going to talk about the paraprofessional group and the ACLIP support group as she is directly involved with these.
All staff at all levels can gain, not just managers, we all have a commitment to continued professional development.So what can/do staff in the west midlands region gain from the L&D group?The chance to improve their cv, for example show commitment to professional development by attending events and learning new skills, also through presenting or holding a workshop at a knowledge sharing event. The chance to learn knowledge and skills that are needed in order to progress forwards in your career. The opportunity to network with fellow colleagues and share ideas for service developmentThe opportunity to gain new skills and knowledgeThe opportunity to take control of your own career.
Enables you to ensure your staff are getting the specialised Library knowledge they need at no cost other than time to yourselves.it equals a good return on investment, for example the par-professionals group have run courses on arrange displays.It can also be used for staff appraisal reviews: to help increase an area of knowledge need for progression through to the next gate way or by encourage them to present or job showed.It’s a good opportunity to keep your staffs CPD up to date and its demonstrable
Chair will organised dates for the meetings and agendas. Minutes are done by a member of the group.Tasks are discussed and assigned during the meeting, these can range from looking at documents, to reporting back to our local networks, surveys and helping with the administrative tasks for the knowledge sharing eventsWe are currently working on revising the strategy and work plan, which once completed will give us achievable aims for the coming year.
We are in the early stages of working collaboratively with the East Midlands and East of England areas, representatives of which have joined our group. Geographically, especially with East of England, shared events may not work, but there is a great opportunity to learn from one another and share good practice.In addition, we are beginning to look into e-learning for library staff development. Packages have already been developed for library users, and this seemed like a logical step. A national learning needs assessment is due to take place in January 2013. Local data can be extracted from this to inform local learning events, as well as informing planning on a wider scale across the country
Before I move on the see if you have any questions could I ask:How many people in the room have a group within their region like this?How many would be interested in starting something like this?Are there any comments/thoughts or views on what you’ve seen?Any other questions?