What makes home care so amazing
by Emma Sheldon, Registered Manager for Home Care and Live-in Services
I was recently asked what makes home care so amazing.
It was a wonderful opportunity for me to briefly step back from my busy role to think about the positive impact our carers have each day on the lives of others.
There are so many reasons why what we do is so important. To begin with, our role caring in the community offers those we support continuity of care. We build rapport with people and bring out the best in them by allowing them to remain in their preferred setting, where they’re happiest, surrounded by all the things they know and love.
By supporting them to stay at home, they can continue being part of their family in the role they have always played, whether that's as a mother, wife, father, or son.
By being at home our customers do better and have a longer, happier, more fulfilled life. We have one customer at the moment in her 90s who has a memory retention of 35 seconds. The customer is able to stay at home, with us ensuring she is safe, where she is content. Without our support remaining at home would not be safe and it is felt by professionals that she would quickly become confused away from her familiar surroundings.
At home she can orientate herself, makes snacks and drinks, and is in her happy place. Remaining in the family home also means she can continue being part of her family, and her friends can visit her as they always have, whenever they wish.
We’ve just started supporting an independent lady who requires structure and help with personal boundaries. The customer needed a support worker with a calm demeanour, and we had a perfect match for her.
This customer had been supported by other providers before coming to us and previously had bad experiences. The customer expressed that she felt she was doing wrong and didn't feel others were teaching her boundaries about personal space. We aim to get the best out of every one of our customers, as well as each member of our team.
When we have challenging circumstances our first instinct is not to pull out and withhold care, we work with all parties and create good communication channels to find out how we can solve any issues we’re seeing. I think by monitoring a situation and showing transparency and honesty and bringing everyone together we can make things work.
It’s very important for us to spend time understanding our customers, finding out what it is they would like from our care and support. You must have good listening skills and be able to communicate effectively to do this job well.
I understand the importance of home care myself, as I have physical care needs and receive support 24/7 too. It allows me to live in my home, to be a mum, a partner, a daughter, to work, to be a manager. Without my care, I couldn’t fulfil these roles.
What we do requires compassion, understanding, kindness, thought and skills including resilience and the ability to work around situations to find the best solution for everyone involved.
There is never a dull day, as each one is different. We embrace that here and enjoy the challenge, as it’s very rewarding knowing what we’re doing makes a real difference to someone's world and that we’re making people feel happy, safe, and secure.
To find out how you can work in Emma’s team click here.