Becoming a carer can be a fulfilling and rewarding career for someone who possesses the right qualities. To be a carer you need to be patient, compassionate, a great communicator and a problem solver. As well as these soft skills, before starting a job in the caring profession you will be required to carry out some formal training.
The Care Certificate
Completion of the Care Certificate is a requirement for all people who are new to care work.The Care Certificate was launched in March 2015 to ensure consistency in the care provided by both health care assistants and social care support workers, following a report called the Cavendish review. The Care Certificate seeks to teach skills and knowledge to provide safe and compassionate care and is made up of 15 component standards. It usually takes around 12 weeks to complete for people in full-time work and it is the responsibility of the employer to ensure that all the standards are met. There are lots of materials available free of charge online as well as events and workshops that you can attend. Compliance in ensuring completion of the Care Certificate by all new members of staff is something that is checked carefully by the Care Quality Commission when they visit care homes. They will ask employers to demonstrate how staff are meeting requirements so it is essential that the care certificate is completed properly and understood.
As somebody who is new to care work, you may find it advantageous to download some of the information from the Internet and begin to learn some of the subjects, but remember that completion of the certificate relies on assessment by your employer. Reading alone is not enough to complete the work, you need to undertake practical training and supervision as well and be able to demonstrate competencies.
The 15 standards are as follows:
- Understand your role. This assesses whether you are clear about your duties and responsibilities in your job.
- Your personal development. This enables you to create a learning and development plan for yourself.
- Duty of care. This allows you to think through and understand any ethical dilemmas that you may be faced with at work.
- Equality and diversity. This is an important component that helps you understand inclusion and avoid discrimination.
- Working in a person centred way. This helps to understand how to provide support to individuals.
- Communication. Another important component which allows you to learn how to recognise signs of discomfort or pain through verbal and non-verbal communication and behaviour.
- Privacy and dignity. How to maintain the dignity of your clients without compromise.
- Fluids and nutrition. This includes information on the importance of food safety, good nutrition and hydration in wellbeing.
- Awareness of mental health, dementia and learning disabilities. This ensures understanding of how these conditions will affect an individual.
- Safeguarding adults. Helping to understand types of abuse and harm and how to identify it.
- Safeguarding children. As above but with regard to children rather than adults.
- Basic life support. Within this module you will learn how to carry out basic life support.
- Health and safety. Learning to understand legislation in a social care setting.
- Handling information. Exploring information sharing and data confidentiality.
- Infection prevention and control. Becoming aware of personal protection equipment and hygiene.
In addition to completion of the Care Certificate, a cheerful and positive disposition along with some hands on experience in care will be good tools to start a long and happy career whether it is live in care jobs or work in a residential care home you want to go for.
