 Hi everyone and welcome back to another vlog. My name is Claire Carmichael, I'm a newly qualified general practice nurse but I have 12 years experience in health care which includes sexual health and family planning and I also worked in elderly care for about five and a half years, a year of learning disabilities and a little bit of orthopedic theatres as well. And today's vlog is all about how to go from being a care assistant up to a senior care assistant. This is something I have personally done myself as well. I was a care assistant before and I went up to, it was called a team leader then but it's the same as a senior care assistant. So hopefully I can give you some advice and tips to help you get to that stage if that's what you want. Tip number one. So my biggest tip I think is show your dedication, motivation and passion. If you can show that you're all of these things, they're going to want to invest all of their time into you because you're showing that same dedication and you're showing that hard work from the day one. So if you can show that and show that you can step up then that's going to go in your favour massively. Tip number two. This tip is know your stuff. So make sure you know the local policies, guidelines, procedures, how that home works, the ins and outs of everything because they might ask you this sort of thing in your interview for example when they ask you know why should we employ you then you can reel off all the stuff that you know and all the background stuff that you know just that little bit more of an advanced knowledge that you might need to know as a senior care assistant. Tip number three. Make sure that you're a real good team player so you want to get all of your colleagues on your side basically. You want to help everyone out. You want to be that person that people go to for help and advice. You want to be that person that's there for everybody because when it comes to applying for a senior care assistant role they may just ask your colleagues what sort of a person you are and if they should give you the role basically like a little double reference kind of check with your colleagues so if they're going to put in a good word that is going to go massively in your favour so yes be kind and good to your colleagues and always help them out. Tip number four. This tip is more about qualifications I know the the boring stuff that will hopefully help your knowledge and get you there so have a look at the job description and person spec on the senior care assistant post. Make sure you've got the right qualifications to apply for the post it sounds like a very common sense thing to do but sometimes you get so excited I've done it before I get so excited to apply for something and then lastly I've read the qualifications and then I've just been like oh I can't apply I have not got that qualification so yeah check the qualifications and do whatever you need to do to get there and to get applying. So doing things like extra courses that you might be interested in doing these little extra e-learning packages maybe that might go in your favour when you come to apply for a senior post little things like that's going to make a massive difference and finally tip number five. Never give up and keep trying I've thrown this in there because this was me I went for the team leader position twice the first time I didn't get it they didn't think I was ready mainly because I didn't have the confidence to be a team leader so don't get down about it I didn't get down about it I just thought you know what that's okay they've obviously said this for a reason I got some really good feedback so ask for feedback if you're not successful and build on it and that's exactly what I did I built upon all of that feedback I gained more confidence and then when I felt ready I went for it again and I was successful so definitely never give up don't feel too down about it if you don't get it first time just literally take back all of that feedback like I said and just smash it next time you will absolutely do amazing I'm sure so I hope I've given you enough tips and advice to help you get that senior care position if you want it if I can help you with anything else please comment below and I will try and help out as much as I can but for now it's goodbye and good luck