Trainer notches-up 15 years in a caring profession

A motorsport-loving training manager who spends weekends at race tracks is marking his 15th anniversary at a Norfolk home care company.​

Justin Mayes joined the family-run Extra Hands in 2010 as a carer, and five years later he took on the training role.

Celebrations for his tenth anniversary were somewhat curtailed due to the pandemic, which saw  home care companies among the few which could still have staff out and about during lockdowns.

“Covid prompted the biggest changes, moving from all in-person training to Zoom and utilising online training much more than we ever did,” he said.

The challenges of working in the care industry during the pandemic were immediate as the carers had to continue in their role, whatever else was happening, but the transfer to online learning has had benefits.

“Being able to train remotely has opened up opportunities for people who might have struggled to free themselves of other commitments like picking up children from school. This would have been a definite barrier when training in person, but as all the training sessions are recorded, missing a little bit of it is no longer an issue as they can catch up.

“We set up an app for new people during induction which gives access to everything they will need during that time. Access to recordings, tests, policies and procedures are all in one, accessible place.”

Justin started his working life at the age of 18 when he worked at Little Plumstead Hospital, near Norwich, which was home for people with profound and multiple disabilities. He has also worked in the field of mental health, drug and alcohol dependency.

After working at Extra Hands as a carer, he was looking at career progression and had considered becoming a paramedic, but didn’t want to leave the company so moved across onto the training side of the role at the company which has offices in Heacham and Horsham St Faith.

But, despite years of successful training under his belt, Justin says not everyone can be taught to be a good carer.

“I can train anybody to fulfil the criteria of tasks required, understand the principles, what to do when and how to record all that is required. I cannot train attitude, they are carers, the clue is in the name, the person has to care and that is not something that can be trained into a person,” he said.

A new starter at Extra Hands will be training on Zoom for a week covering all aspects of induction ranging from safeguarding to emergency first aid. The second week is in-person for practical training. Everyone has frequent refreshers to keep up to date with any changes.

A keen motor racing fan, Justin can be found at a racetrack most weekends which ties in with another hobby, camping. He has a Volkswagen camper and says he can ‘bore you to death’ about the ‘dub.’

Justin lives with his partner Tina, who has been roped in to feature in some of the training videos, and their youngest child Nico, who has six older siblings either at university or working.