In December 2018, the team at ABC Online Courses were chosen by Christies Care to install, theme, customise and manage their new Open edX platform. The Christies Care Open edX platform will be used to train over 400 employees per year all across the UK. On 19 March, 2019 ABC were invited to Christies Care to hand over the project on site. ABC travelled to Christies Care head office and business campus at Rose House in Suffolk, England. With over 30 years’ experience, Christies Care are one the UK’s leading live in care agencies.
ABC Online Courses are proud to be managing the Open edX website for Christies Care, one of England’s largest providers of professional live-in carers. They have achieved numerous awards for their training, including the Princess Royal Training Awards 2017 that honours employers in the UK who have created outstanding training and skills development programmes that have resulted in exceptional commercial benefits.
Christies Care are now using Open edX to run their internal training programmes to over 400 carers across the UK. Christies Care use a blended learning approach of on-campus and online training, and Open edX will make training more streamlined, manageable and enjoyable, especially for carers who are already placed at homes across Britain, who sometimes only have access to a smartphone for training while on the job. Continuous training and development is high on the agenda for Christies Care as their live-in carers are working and – as the name suggests – living with clients in order to care for them. It was important that their Open edX e-learning website looks good on mobile phones, as a majority of carers enjoy taking their courses on their mobile phones. For this reason, ABC Online Courses themed the Christies Care Open edX website specifically for devices of all size, from smartphone, to tablet, to laptop.
When ABC arrived at Christies Care, we were taken on a tour of the business campus, where we met the training and the business operations teams, then took a look at a live on-campus training session. There were more than 20 large pieces of equipment across the training centre, all used in the different live-in caring situations, such as clients with sore backs, or clients that have limited range of motion. It was fascinating to see the complexity of the equipment. It reinforced for ABC how difficult caring for the elderly can be, and how important it is to deliver ongoing training to carers in the field. ABC are happy to see that Open edX is being used in such an important setting. On our way back from the training centre, we had the chance to meet the owner of the company who was walking across the campus on his way to a meeting.
ABC and the Christies Care training team sat down to share our experiences with Studio, the Open edX course authoring tool that is built into Open edX. We did a two-hour training session together, creating and building a short training course as a demo using Open edX Studio.
Before we knew it, the clock struck and it was lunch time! Tim took us out for lunch at the Aldeburgh seaside, not a few minutes’ drive from the Christies Care campus. It took 15 minutes to get there via the B1121 and A1094 roads, which were flanked by rolling green fields and stunning wooden fences. When we arrived, we were met by one of the oldest houses in the area, a local attraction still with its wooden exterior and overextended first floor.
The seaside is of course accompanied by well-known restaurants, which is where we were headed. We went to 137 High Street, Aldeburgh to The Upper Deck Diner where we enjoyed a plate of traditional fish and chips with mushy peas!
Open edX is changing the way online education and training is being delivered. Open edX is trusted by some of the world’s best companies and universities. When amazing companies like Christies Care choose Open edX to run their online training, it further enforces the fact that Open edX is already making a positive impact in the United Kingdom. It is the scalability and fantastic user experience of Open edX that makes it the first choice for anyone looking to expand their online education and training capabilities.
We look forward to seeing Christies Care continue their success in training one of the largest groups of live-in carers across the United Kingdom. Thank you for choosing ABC Online Courses to install and manage your Open edX online learning platform, and for an excellent first visit to your campus and seaside. We look forward to visiting again soon!