A former RAF Wing Commander and commercial airline pilot has been brought in to put future care home leaders through their paces.
Lincolnshire-based Home From Home Care has enlisted the services of Captain and retired Wing Co Ryan Mannering to provide inspirational management and leadership training for its up-and-coming staff.
Wing Co Mannering flew fast jets including Tornado GR4 bombers and Eurofighter Typhoons in various roles across the globe during his 22 year career in the RAF.
He is now a commercial airline pilot, instructor and examiner, flying Boeing 737 Next Generation aircraft around the world.
Working with Home From Home Care he will offer the same sort of bespoke training used by the RAF and commercial airlines.
The programme aims to help ambitious colleagues move up the ranks quickly, gaining leadership skills and applying critical thinking and problem solving skills to their work in the care sector.
The programme is being specially designed for Home From Home Care, which runs 11 care homes and specialist integration facilities for adults with learning disabilities, autism and other complex needs in Greater Lincolnshire.
Wing Co Mannering said: 鈥淢anagers at Home From Home Care must have an instinctive understanding of technology, a forward thinking ability to embrace innovation as well as a powerful sense of empathy and a desire to help others.
鈥淭he RAF has a very well established and developed leadership management training programme that fosters individuals through life and work. It means that if you are suitable and willing, you get promoted and you are afforded more responsibility with more leadership and management tasks.
鈥淚鈥檓 combining this with the very different command and control aspects of leadership that are required as commander of an airliner and applying it to the unique organisation and structure of Home From Home Care.
鈥淯nderpinning all of this is a recognition of the similarities between aviation and healthcare.
鈥淥ver the last 20 years, medicine has recognised this, understanding that humans are fallible and we all make mistakes, so procedures and checklists are in place to overcome this.
鈥淢edicine has also embraced what鈥檚 called 鈥榡ust culture鈥 where we recognise mistakes and try to understand them and learn from them to make a system or an individual perform better.
鈥淗ome From Home Care is unlike any other care provider in the country; it鈥檚 an organisation that鈥檚 confident in the use of innovative technologies and it uses these to empower colleagues to deliver exceptional care for the individuals they support.
鈥淚鈥檓 tailoring this training programme to the needs of the great people who work here, supporting people from entry level to very top.
鈥淚n a lot of ways, I鈥檓 putting older heads on young shoulders, giving them the tools and experience to become exceptional leaders.鈥
A small cohort from Home From Home Care recently joined him in resilience and teamwork exercises at Go Ape, and he is now developing a syllabus for the team.
Home From Home Care director Hugo de Savary said: 鈥淎s far as leadership experience goes, it doesn鈥檛 get much more impressive than Ryan鈥檚.
鈥淔rom commanding pilots and ground crews in war zones to training and evaluating the pilots of commercial airliners, Ryan鈥檚 management skills are phenomenal and I鈥檓 very excited for him to share these with the Home From Home Care team.
鈥淔ast jets and airliners might seem a long way from care, but we鈥檙e very different to any other care home operator, so this is exactly the kind of progressive, modern and dynamic leadership training our future managers need.
鈥淭he management practices of the RAF have been successfully adopted by other medical institutions like hospitals with great success, so we鈥檙e really excited to see the impact this training programme will have.鈥
