Training and Development

As a leading local social care charity, we have 150 years of experience and knowledge in delivering social care services.

Our specialist in-house training and development department is responsible for all of our social care training across the organisation. The team work in collaboration with external partners and experts, and we welcome the opportunity to share our knowledge and experience with other social care providers across the UK.

VSA employs 650 people in the city of Aberdeen. Our training and development department delivers a wide variety of accredited and continuous development training courses across the year. For example, these include courses such as: first aid, mental health first aid, adult and child protection, manual handling, palliative care, dementia training, additional support needs and behavioural support strategies.

Behavioural Support Strategies (BSS) is managed and coordinated by VSA. It offers training and support to develop and implement the BSS programme of dealing with challenging behaviour in Scotland.

The need to establish BSS was driven by changes in European and Scottish legislation, e.g. Human Rights Act 1998 and Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 which required organisations to have recognised systems of accountability in place to ensure quality of provision for people who use services. The BSS approach is an established and recognised method of achieving this for people who, on occasions, may challenge services.