“It is a privilege to be welcomed into someone’s home and to work with them in their daily lives”
Working in home care is not for the faint hearted, however, for the amazing individuals that do work in home care it is, even with the challenges, a particularly rewarding career. It is a privilege to be welcomed into someone’s home and to work with them in their daily lives experiencing all their different highs and lows. The relationship between care and support workers and those they provide services to can be something extremely emotional to behold.
I personally have many stories and great memories from working in home care both as a care and support worker and as a manager. I started working as a care worker at the age of 24 and it made me into the person I am today. I learnt so much from the people I supported from practical skills to seeing different perspectives and learning some good old-fashioned wisdom.
When I started as a new care worker, even with comprehensive training, it can be an overwhelming experience going into people’s homes and assisting them with their complex needs. Learning how to assist an individual to move in a training session is quite different from assisting an actual person with various health concerns and mobility issues. I was very fortunate to receive great support from wonderful supervisors who were able to demonstrate the job and mentor new staff members with little or no previous care experience. Care and support workers who had worked in care for many years and had that innate and natural ability to build relationships with people in challenging situations and to make a difference to their lives. These experienced workers provide reassurance and comfort at distressing times in a person’s life and are invaluable when showing new workers that important aspect of the role. Many practical skills are transferable and can be taught but having compassion and empathy for others in distress and understanding their needs is at the heart of the job the social care workforce does.
I will never forget the supervisor who received a round of applause upon completing roughly five minutes of the Great Scottish Run in order to get from one side of the road to the other. The crowd watching the run responded with joy and laughter when the supervisor set off at a jog in pace of the runners to weave her way through the crowd.
This is a lighthearted example but there are so many more of staff going above and beyond to help and care for the service users they support. This often means taking time out of their own lives and personal time to stay with someone who is unwell or has fallen. Home care workers rearrange their own commitments and responsibilities to ensure that the individual has a familiar face and someone there to provide comfort while they are waiting on an ambulance and are in pain or unwell.
I had the absolute privilege to accompany staff during the extreme adverse weather we experienced when the “Beast from the East” came to Glasgow. Staff were walking though knee-deep snow and found the solution of wearing poly bags over their socks and inside their boots to try to keep their feet warm and dry. On an occasion where people were being advised to stay at home and protect themselves, care and support staff, among others, were out walking through the snow and blizzards to get to people in their homes and give them the care and support they needed.
Within all types of social care valuable relationships are made but it is so inspiring especially as a manager of a home care service when you find that match between care and support worker and service user that is life changing for that individual. I have seen first-hand the difference that special person can make especially when people have experienced mental health problems and periods of stress and aguish caused by a change in life circumstances. To see someone flourish under the right support after a time that they thought they would never get back to the person they had been is so rewarding for all involved.
I loved my job as a home care manager going out and meeting some fantastic individuals and hearing stories of their lives and personal experiences. I met an elderly lady who had worked at the age of 16 during the war on a forty-foot crane and had walked along the gantry whistling with her hands in her pockets. People are full of surprises from all walks of life and have so much to offer to the younger generations. This is an important aspect of social care and we must realise that these relationships can go both ways and benefit both the care worker and service user. Staff often express their pleasure in some of the things that they learn from the people they support, and you can see this empowers the service user too when sharing their life skills with others.
Amongst the current challenges it is important to remember the positive aspects of this sector and the good times that happen too. I will leave you with a story that I feel encompasses home care: I was talking with a provider who told me that during the torrential rain we had back in September they had been calling their staff working out and about in the community to see how they were getting on. When the manager of the service had spoken with one staff member they had responded that they were absolutely fine: they had been soaked to the skin while getting to their first call, however, they were now getting dry and were nice and warm in the service users home having a cup of tea together and planning the day ahead. That to me gives a true example of the sharing of lives and experiences and the wonderful benefits that home care can bring to both the workforce and those they care and support.
Caroline Deane
Workforce Policy & Practice Lead, Scottish Care
Before the event he wrote the following blog to challenge some of the stereotypes and negative attitudes which still exist around age. Madonna – The champion of age. Over the years the controversial singer Madonna has spoken about the flak that she had to take because of “using sexuality as part of my creativity” and with being labelled a “sexual provocateur” amongst the politest of critiques. She is now facing a new battle and in an interview in British Voguepublished on 10th May has argued that she is now fighting ageism in the music industry and that she is “being punished” for hitting 60. She told Voguemagazine: “People have always been trying to silence me for one reason or another, whether it’s that I’m not pretty enough, I don’t sing well enough, I’m not talented enough, I’m not married enough, and now it’s that I’m not young enough. All too many people will share Madonna’s angst about ageism and I for one look forward to her battling against it. Ageism is so endemic that it has become part and parcel of the wallpaper of our realities – so subtle, so pervasive that it is not even noticed; it is just accepted as a given, as a state of unalterable being. It’s almost the same position that racism was in the 1950s and early 1960s – so unconsciously accepted as a social norm in the UK that it went unnoticed – except by its victims. It is in the language we use, the stereotypes we accept, the rhetoric we hear. What do a ticking time bomb, a silver tsunami and a population apocalypse all have in common? No, they aren’t the latest plotline from an episode of Line of Dutybut rather they are phrases used to describe the fact that we are living longer. They are highly negative descriptions of a reality that most of us would or should want to celebrate – we are dying older and healthier than at any time in Scottish history. So why the negativity? Why is it that so much of our cultural and political discourse about old age paints such a dark and depressing picture of decline? Old age is something which should be valued, but alarmist attitudes fail to recognise the benefits and potential of older age and feed into the myth that getting old is about losing something rather than gaining something new and potentially positive. Old age is seen as a challenge rather than an opportunity. Everywhere you look there are negative stereotypes which perpetuate the myth that older people are incapable and dependent, have nothing to contribute but rather are a burden and a drain on society. We see this in many of the current debates about social care and health which count up the costs an ageing population results in but fail to recognise that over 90% of care delivered in this country comes from the hands of people who are themselves old thus saving the taxpayer countless millions. In Scotland I am sure we would like to believe that we treat all peoples as equal, regardless of colour, creed, disability, sexual orientation and we have indeed made great strides in addressing discrimination and hate. But have we made the same progress against negative stereotyping and discrimination which is based on age? I think not – why is it that a child in receipt of residential care will have nearly double the amount of public resource allocated to their care than an older person of 90 in a care home? Why is it that countless individuals talk about not even getting the chance of an interview if they are over 60 and are seeking employment? Why is it that at the age of 65 people who are accessing social care support move from being an adult onto being an ‘older person’ and in some areas such as mental health services they tell us they suddenly find the level of their support diminishes? Do we feel it is adequate that for thousands of older people seeking social care support that you can only now be eligible if your need is ‘critical’, that our social care services are critically under-funded? We need to take off the heather-tinted glasses and face up to the reality that Scotland is as ageist a nation as many others in the world but rather than just recognise this we need to act . Yes, the Scottish Government has just published a great summative strategy, but … Scotland has a real opportunity to do things much better. Embedding human rights at the heart of economic, social and political systems is a start. However, regardless of good policy intention and political priorities unless we address the pervasive cult of youth in our society, we will continue to acquiesce with ageist discrimination. So, with Madonna I will continue to fight against the ageist discrimination that fails to value contribution, for me that means fighting for Scotland to have an Older People’s Commissioner and for a Convention of the Rights of Age. What does it mean for you? How can we together create a country which is the best place in which to grow old and in which value and contribution is recognised regardless of chronology? In the words of Madonna:
