1. Institute for Health Research Lancaster University
What makes a good housing support worker? A new way of finding out how good support workers are
Institute for Health Research
Lancaster University

2. The project What should a good housing support worker be like?
Can we measure how good housing support workers are at their jobs (job performance)?
Will different groups of people agree on what a good housing support worker will be like?
People with learning difficulties
Family members
Staff
Managers

3. The project Test our measures of job performance against:
Staff well-being (burnout)
What happens in the house (planning processes, institutional routines)
Service user lifestyle (choice, satisfaction with life)

4. Getting the measures 1 We used an adapted ‘job element method’
For each group:
An expert panel produces a long list of possible things that make a good housing support worker (day 1)
Each member of the expert panel rates the importance of all of these things

5. Getting the measures 2
Each expert panel produces a final short list of the most important things that make a good housing support worker (day 2)
For each thing in the final list, the expert panel writes an example of great, OK and bad staff behaviour (day 2)
This is used to produce the measure of job performance (how good housing support workers are)

6. Job performance measures
People with learning difficulties (interview)
18 questions, rating staff as ‘good’, ‘okay’ or ‘bad’
Relatives (questionnaire)
27 questions, scored on 7-point scales
Support staff (questionnaire)
26 questions, scored on 7-point scales
Managers (questionnaire)
23 questions, scored on 7-point scales

7. Service users: examples of measure
Staff I can have fun with
Staff who spend time with me listening and talking
Staff I can rely on
Staff who are honest
Staff who will do the things I want to do
Staff who will give me new ideas but not force me to do things
Staff who are handy around the house

8. Testing out the measures
People who took part
134 staff 82 service users
38 relatives 115 managers
Different groups highlighted different things that were important for housing support staff
No group mentioned qualifications
Only the staff group mentioned skills that they rated as needing training before starting the job

9. The measures Job performance measures easy to complete for each group
All four job performance measures good for internal and test-retest reliability (over a month)
Ratings from all groups generally high (because staff chose to take part?)
BUT: the four job performance measures not associated with each other!

10. Service user and family measures
If people with learning difficulties rated staff as better at their job, then…
Staff scored lower on burnout (emotional exhaustion)
Service users had more person-centred planning goals
Service users were more satisfied with other important people in their lives
Service users said they had less choice (in fact, this was mainly about having help to make choices rather than making choices on your own)
There weren’t enough relatives to look in depth at their measure

11. Staff and manager measures
If staff rated themselves as better at their job, then…
Staff scored lower on burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, personal accomplishment)
If managers rated staff as better at their job, then…
There were fewer institutional routines in the service users’ home
Service users said they had more choice
Service users were more satisfied with their lives in a number of ways

12. Some thoughts All groups can complete measures
The measures mention important issues missing from other measures (e.g. NVQ)
We need to look at job performance from different points of view
The service users and managers job performance measures look the most promising at the moment

13. Some thoughts
How specific are these competencies to support staff in housing services?
How specific are these competencies to supporting people with learning difficulties?
Does this way of looking at competencies fit better with personalised supports?
How do these measures fit with NVQ?

14. Some thoughts Can we use these or similar measures in recruitment?
Not relying on qualifications, but on directly assessed competencies
What implications do these measures have for training?
Can staff be trained to be fun, friendly and honest?
How important are ‘skills’?