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Care Assistant
by AngelEyes76
..INTRODUCTION..
Hi I'm Lisa, 36 and have been working as a care assistant for many years now and in different homes. I've always worked the night shift as it is suitable for me to do so with my partner and child. I have to admit my job does have it's ups and downs, its advantages and disadvantages, but so do all jobs I ... expect. It is tiring and very demanding work, physically and mentally draining, but all the same I enjoy and love my work. It's a very rewarding job and I love everything about it, well almost everything. I do remember my first ever interview I had applied for, the care assistant role, they were sitting there telling me what the job entailed me to do, and what was expected of me, but as soon as they came to the part of cleaning their bums etc, my thoughts was negative, and thought I cannot do this, a bit harsh seems I never tried it, but the thought put me off. I had my first child at 17, and it changed my way of thinking and knew that I was harsh in my decision of being a care assistant, if I could wipe a babies bum it would be no different then to be doing it to older person, I regretted my decision to not give the job a go, so I applied to more care assistant jobs, and gave it a go, and never regretted it since. Enough of this chat, let me carry on with the review in hand.
..DUTIES HAS A NIGHT CARE ASSISTANT..
There are quite a few duties we have to undertake at night, and can be very frustrating sometimes. Caring for the elderly is the main and most important duty on any shift, some residents are in need of going to bed and also getting ready for bed, so we assist with this before any other duty is carried out. Once all residents are in bed tucked up, we then start on the other jobs, which are as follows
Cleaning the living areas - washing down the chairs, polishing, vacuuming the floor, cleaning out the bins, also I have been washing down the skirting boards too.
Dining room - washing the tables and chairs, mopping the floor, washing skirting boards, setting the table for breakfast in the morning.
Toilets - cleaning the toilets, removing the bags out the bins, mopping the floor.
Laundry - washing, drying and ironing of clothes
Preparation of vegetables
All these jobs can take quite a long to time to do especially with residents wandering through the night or the buzzer goes off for assistance, but we do get it all done. Because there is no senior on a night shift we are responsible for calling out any doctors, or ambulance if necessary, all paperwork that needs to be looked at my either doctor or ambulance crew. The main duty of any shift is the caring of the elderly regardless, All residents have a dance mat in their rooms that need them, dance mat - a mat where when they stand on it the assistance buzzer will sound. If they don't have a dance mat then they have a buzzer on their wall if they should need us, when pressed their door number will be displayed by a flashing light against their name on a board so we know who is need of us.
..TRAINING..
Training might sound boring to most people but the training is there to help you, it is free and provided to you by your manager, it is mostly undertaken in the care home, so no going to a collage for a day to do it. The down side is you don't get paid for doing it as I think we should, but in saying that it is free to do. I have learnt a lot of things attending the courses and as reassured me as a care assistant that my duties I undertake are right and safely done. The training can last between 1-3 hours depending on the training, there is a chance to voice your concerns, questions and uncertainties after the training has finished. Training has to be done to ensure you are aware of your duties as a care assistant, and help you learn things you didn't know, making your job safer to do, and also keeping your residents safe and protected.
..RESIDENTS..
Now then I'm only going to tell you a bit about residents as most of you will know what I am talking about already. These are elderly people, some with dementia, some with Alzheimer's, some which have had falls, and some with strokes, regardless of there health problems they are all still human, most people tend to forget that. Some residents have worked all their life and dependant on no one but themselves, and when they come into a home, it upsets them because they don't want to be there where people are doing the things for them that once could do themselves, I cannot imagine how they feel, however I do try and understand and I know it must be hard for them to take a step back and let others help them. We don't as a carer take over, we do let them take charge to what they can manage as if we don't they loose their independence, and we don't want that at all. All residents are different in their own way, but we as carers are all there to help, regardless of race, age, sex, beliefs, and health problems they might have. Resident put in a lot of trust to let us help them, care for them and assist them with anything that want and need help with. I have seen the programs on the tele about old people being mistreated and it is disgusting, and makes me sick to my stomach. A lot of reassurance is good enough for residents and will help them settle, but others it don't. It's the case of caring and being there for them no matter what.
..PAPERWORK..
Yes believe it or not there is paper work in this job and quite a lot of it sometimes too. At the end of every shift you have to write in each residents care plan to ensure that it is up to date with how they have been on the shift. You note everything in the care plan, what assistance was given, how they have slept, wet or dry, everything! Then you have top fill out the handover book, this is a book that a member of staff fills out of how every resident has been through the night, I know it's all repeated. The handover book is then signed by the person writing and reading it the senior, the book is there to let staff and manager know what has happened on that shift with each resident. Any forms that need to be filled out for accidents or incidents in the night as to be done before leaving the shift. Any phone calls that have been received in the night have to noted in the handover book also.
..ROTA..
Usually when working in a care home, you will be placed on a rota based system which is where your designated shifts are, this can be accessed by all staff and changes the rota are only made by the senior on shift or the manager. Holidays can only be taken when your 3 months probation period as ended, holidays are filled out and placed with the manager, you normally get 5.6 weeks a year of holidays.
..HOURS..
Most care homes I know usually have 12hour shifts, ours don't, we have 5 shifts although that does depend on the residents we have in the home to what hours are required.
8am - 1pm (this will get crushed if we have less residents in)
8am - 3pm this is the main shift of the day
3pm - 8pm (this will also be crushed if we have less residents in)
3pm - 10pm this is also the main shift
10pm - 8am main shift
Hours to suit everyone.
..CRB and required items..
Before you start your job, you will have to have a crb, which is set up by your employer, sometimes you don't have to pay for this but in other homes you do, but it is refundable by your manager as soon as it comes through your clean. A CRB check is a police record if you have been in trouble by the police and have a criminal record then don't bother applying for a job in this line of work, as they wont employ you, you have to understand your dealing with elderly vulnerable people. When starting your new job you should receive a uniform which is normally free of charge and also a key/fob/card for clocking in and out of the building, this is also free of charge but should you loose it then you have to pay for a new one.
..PAY..
The pay meets national minimum wage which is sad really to what work we actually do. Holidays taken are also paid for, however training courses are not paid to you.
..FINAL THOUGHTS..
Well I hope I have summed everything up here. I cannot see myself in another career than this one, I love going to work, I love spending time with the resident when I can, and most of all looking after them and caring for them, earning their trust. I love every resident there, and I have been attached to a lot of them, I know people say you shouldn't but you just can't help it. Care homes are not always the best place to be, I have to admit, you need to have the right staff, with a lot of patience, care and love and most of dedication, and luckily for me I do have that.
Thank you for reading and I hope I have covered everything
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Social Worker
by annie47
I qualified as a Social Worker in 2006. I applied for some posts, and was elated when i got an offer at a local Authority. I thought, at the time that the pay was great and to be honest i really was proud of my achievement regarding getting through my 3 year degree; especially considering i was a mature student. (I am not currently ... practicing). Prior to commencing my social work degree course, i went on an access course which believe it or not was harder than the first year at Uni! It taught me well though and I learned alot. The access course was very good in preparing me for my degree. The degree course involved a great deal of learning; in the year i went to university it was the first time the degree had been taught. Prior to this social workers needed a diploma (which took 2 years to complete). At university we were taught some important and essential things about child development; values and ethics, social policy, law, communication skills, evidence based practice, anti discriminatory practice. The only area that i felt at the time we should have been taught about was drugs and alcohol. Barely any time was spent on this at all. It is my understanding that this subject area may be taught more often in the future. In our 2nd and 3rd years we had to go on a practice placement. I found these placements to be very rewarding and alot was learnt. All in all i enjoyed my time at Uni and the time flew past. Social work is evolving and changing all the time and i do feel that strenuous efforts are made to try to improve this important vocation.
I had actually considered going into primary teaching when deciding upon my career path; and it was only at the last minute, i chose social work. I basically chose it due to life experiences and felt that I would enjoy it and actually be good at it. At the time i had two young children so i knew it would be tough all round but felt sure it would be worth it.
It was more of a fluke that I went into working with children and families (child protection and child in need work) ; I had originally thought about working with older people and some advice was given at Uni about how tough working in children and families would be. This advice did prove to be correct. However, i did overall enjoy my job. We had a great team, i was very empathetic with the families; i think i was a hard worker and i always tried to be fair. Of course, the main priority is to protect children from harm, so their safety/ needs must be placed first above all else.
One good thing about the local authority i worked for was that there were plenty of opportunities for further learning and many training courses were available to take. Continuing professional development is essential for social workers as you have to be on the social work register in order to practice; which is currently renewable every 3 years. You need to have done at least 90 hours training/learning within those 3 years.
The work load of a children and families social worker is a very large one. you have to maintain very up to date records, there are dead lines for reports to be completed and deadlines regarding visiting children. This is essential in order to protect children. In my view and experience the amount of time actually spent doing work on the computer was enormous. Whilst of course it is essential and must be done; it is my view that more time should be spend engaging with and visiting, children and families in person. The thing is that everything had to be done and it is my view that caseloads should have been less. If a social worker is overloaded with cases, they may find it difficult to work to their best ability; this in turn also creates stress.
It is very difficult being a social worker in this field of work; you can sometimes be seen by the public to be either doing too little, or too much (hence my heading; your damned if you do and damned if you don't).
Unfortunately Social Workers are not very popular with the general public; but the public are not told about all the hard work and all the successes of social work; they are always only told negative things by the media. This doesn't help matters and also tends to put people off from wanting to become social workers. Of course there have been some terrible cases of child abuse which are extremely upsetting and shocking and if and when mistakes are made, of course this needs to be dealt with and lessons learned.
The sad thing is that no matter how much social workers and the management try to protect children from harm; we cannot be there 24/7 and unfortunately tragedies will continue to happen. The essential thing is for the practice to continue to be looked at; for all social workers to have excellent support in the workplace; and continuing training and development.
The pay is not too bad, it varies depending on where you work; a social worker in london may get around £32,000 per year. Considering the demands of social work with children and families, i think it should be more, but most people don't enter into this profession for money, but for a vocation and because, like me, they want to try to make a difference and help people.
Social Workers don't have to work in the most demanding field of work though; it can be very rewarding working with older adults/children/people with disabilities/hospital social work. There is also Educational Social Work/mental health and many other avenues or areas to go down. You can apply for work in other countries and indeed, should you wish to and be successful, live in another country. So that can't be bad!
Yes, it can be tough being a social worker, but i found it overall to be rewarding and enjoyed working with the children and families; trying to make a difference and ensure that children are kept within their families wherever possible. So try not to be too hard on social workers. We are a good bunch really!
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