LOUISE BAKER: LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
My Name is Louise Baker and I am one of the two Learning & Development Managers at Brandon Trust. I first came to work with people with learning disabilities when I was fifteen years old, volunteering on a summer play scheme being held at school. When I left school I trained as a nurse and began work in residential services, working first with older people and than with people with mental health support needs.
During this time I trained as an NVQ assessor and later an Internal verifier and became very interested in staff development, making the decision to make the break and move into training and development full time in 2002. I left Brandon Trust to join a national training and NVQ company where I covered the South West delivering training and NVQ's in Care & Management from Level 2 to 4, and also the Registered Managers award. I then move on to work for the St.Monica Trust, delivering training and NVQ assessing and Verifying both to their own staff and training external staff from other private organisations. I returned to Brandon Trust in 2004 as the NVQ Assessment Centre Manager and shared this role with my colleague Julie Plant, co-managing all aspects of employee development as well as the NVQ's and LDQ awards.
My main areas of expertise are NVQ & Induction techniques & programmes, training assessors/markers and verifying a range of different awards. I have worked collaboratively with colleagues in the Health Sector as well as Social Care advising them on the way forward with their centres and trained and facilitated standardisation meetings when requested.
