 and welcome back to the vlog. My name is Claire Carmichael. I'm a newly qualified general practice nurse but today I'm talking to you all about the different roles in the care or social work sector. So the first one is carer or care assistant. These are similar titles and a similar job. There's no real difference between them. Sometimes you'll see care assistant, sometimes you'll see carer, but they're pretty much the same thing. And this is actually where I started. So I started off going into healthcare profession as a nurse, as a carer. So I was a carer in an elderly care home. The first one I worked in was just a residential home. We didn't have nurses so we would have to call the district nurses out to the care home or the doctor out to the care home if we needed them. There's different types of carers that you can get. So you can work in a residential home like I did. I also worked in a nursing home where you did have your own nurses that did all things like catheters and bloods and given medications and all those sort of things. Anything nurse related they did. And there's also care homes that are specific to things like learning disabilities or mental health rehabilitation. You've got things like dementia. So actually a nursing home I worked at had different specialities so we'd be nursing but they'd also have a floor. There was first floor, second floor, third floor. And up the top floor was specialized for dementia patients. So anyone with dementia would go up there and they would live up there and they'd have their own set of specialist nurses with specialist training and everything. But in that role, actually in all of my roles in care assisting it would always involve going around, helping with personal care, helping at meal times, doing some cleaning as well, cleaning of bedrooms. Sometimes you'll have what they call housekeeping that do that or a cleaner that comes in and does all that. But actually in my roles that I did, we did all of that. So we'd go around, get people ready, we'd make the bed, we'd empty the bins, have a quick whip around and that was it. The very first care home I worked at, we would hoover and everything. It was very hands-on. You did everything in that home but homes vary between place to place and from job description to job description. So you will never get the same sort of role in every single place. It does vary quite a bit so it's really important that if you're looking for this sort of role to look at the job description what's going to be expected of you. The next role you could have is a senior care assistant. So I've actually been very, very fortunate to have this role although it wasn't really called a senior care assistant, it was called a team leader. Another time you might get the senior care assistant and you are that person that sort of runs the shift. So you're doing the delegating, you will organise your day, you'll look at what staff you've got and where to put staff. So okay you're going to be in charge of these patients, you're going to be in charge of these patients. I'll be doing this as a senior care assistant and well actually as a care assistant as well. I was trained to do medications so I was trained how to read a prescription chart. Back then it was the old boot smarts charts, medication, administration, record. I remembered, it's been years but I remembered. Sorry guys that was a yay. Yeah the March chart is what we called in. It had your list of medications and you'd sign and you'd sign at the right time, right date, right patient, all of that jazz and nine times out of ten we had blister packs so we would just pop out the medications, we'd make sure that the list corresponds to what we had on the March chart, we'd pop it out and that was it for each patient but there was other times where you would have your drugs trolley and you would have all the medications in there for your patient or they would be in the patient's room locked in a cabinet. But yes as a senior care assistant I would delegate to my team and sort out my day. I was also in charge of sort now activities and I was in charge of driving the seven-seater and I'd take people out and we'd have day trips and it was really really nice and that sort of thing. I would also be in charge of doing the banking so I would cash up the money for residents, I would make sure safe was all correct and doing the audits on the safe and the moneys and things that was kept in the safe like personal belongings that were expensive, little things like that I would be in charge of doing and it was a really good role. It was I felt like it was a lot of responsibility but actually I really enjoyed doing that type of role. So also you can have a living carer so this is a carer that lives in so basically so for example I've done this before I didn't live in but I would stay overnight that's what you do you just sort of stay overnight but some people do have you live in permanently as well so for example when I was a team leader I would go in and I would stay overnight and that's just because they need someone to sleep overnight to make sure that there's someone there 24-7 but you weren't expected to stay awake so they didn't have night staff you were just asleep and you were there and you were just if something happened in the night whatever you would get up and you would sort it out but the other type of living carers are people sometimes if people or residents or patients or service users whatever you want to call them if they're at home in their own house sometimes they have a living carer with them so they need someone 24-7 so they can help them during the day and then they'll go to sleep in the house that they've normally got a designated bedroom sometimes they have a little annex off the house and they just help that way but you'll get some time off as well you get your days off and things like that but there are different types of living carers like I said you could there could be a residential home where you stay overnight and you sort of manage that way if someone's personal home in their space you're going to live with them there's all sorts of different types but they're they're just the two that I know of the next role is support worker so as a support worker this is it's a little bit like a carer it's another some people it depends on the place of work and what they've titled you as whether it's a carer a support worker a carer system but they're pretty similar in a way support workers when I think about support workers this is someone that goes out and supports someone to live a quality of life so for example my friend used to be a support worker and she would work with people with learning disabilities and she would do things like attend appointments with them they would go to the pub they would go for meals they would just lead this lovely quality of life together it was really really nice and that's what I think when I think of a support worker I think of someone that's supporting someone to lead a good quality of life in whatever way is possible and sometimes it might involve personal care you might be working and you might have to go to their house really really early and help them get washed and dressed then you go out for the day together or with activities or things like that but generally I think a support worker is just someone that sort of it's not that level of care where you're having to do everything for them you're just supporting them to live a better life if that makes sense another area a support worker might work is somewhere like mental health rehabilitation somewhere like that where someone has maybe been admitted or sectioned for their own safety they've got that poor mental health state at that time but actually now they're ready to come out go back home and live at home and you will be going into this rehabilitation place where it's slowly easing them back into the community to make sure that they're safe and make sure that they're okay with doing that if that makes sense I haven't worked in this sort of place but this is just I'm going off what I've heard and what I've read so if you find anything different please tell me in comment below um but yes it's supporting that person again just to live a good quality of life help help them along and help them to get back into their normal sort of routine for them and what they're comfortable with so you would be that person to support that to put things in place to enable them to meet their goals and it's all about goal planning or care planning normally with support workers as well so you're saying to someone okay what is your goal for today let's help you achieve that I think that's the best way I can try and explain a support worker's role and I hope I've got it right so fingers crossed guys I'm not going off on a waffle here it's really interesting to hear whether people's experiences and what they do out there is amazing so if you are undecided what to do if you want to become a carer support worker team leader whatever you don't know where to start again have a look at the roles have a look at the job descriptions of where you want to apply for have a look at the place and make a decision on that what sort of role and job description are you going to be happy with doing and you're going to love doing because at the end of the day we work most of our lives we have to be 100 happy in the role that we do because it's it's going to become your family and your life so yeah do what makes you happy but another way of doing it as well again I've said this before in previous videos but just get some volunteering experience go in for a day see if you can have a look around and see what they do in that place have a look at a care home have a look at learning disabilities have a look at mental health rehabilitation they've got all these different areas because there's so much variety out there it's a minefield it really really is and it can be really hard to actually narrow it down to what you're going to enjoy and what you're going to love and when you don't know because you've never worked in it it can be really hard so just ringing up having a look around I don't know what it's going to be like again during covid and stuff but I think just trying to get some experience in different places and find your feet and see where you're happy and what you love and what you're passionate about will absolutely make a massive difference but I hope that's given you some sort of insight into the different roles in the social care and care sector and it's giving you a bit more information a bit of food for to see what sort of roles are out there that you can go into and you can do and yeah let me know what you decide let me know if you've experienced any of these and let me know if I've inspired you to go and do it but that's it from me for now as always I shall see you next time and thank you so much for tuning in bye