Julie’s perspective
“I’ve been working for the past 14 years in social care. I love my job and have a bond with the person I support. He requires 24-hour care, seven days a week. From his daily needs to more complex needs, the person I support requires great attention to detail and knowledge of his medical condition. He is unable to use words to communication and over the 14 years we have worked with him, my colleagues and I have developed a detailed understanding of how he communicates his needs and wishes. As his support worker I act as an intermediary between him, his family and any others professional practitioners within the NHS. The support we provide is complex. We manage medication for his seizures, liaise with speech therapists, work alongside nutritionists to ensure that he has a healthy diet, do moving and assisting and support with personal care.
“However, for me, my jobs is much more than that. My team and I work with the person we support to ensure that he has a good life. He loves swimming and we go regularly. We worked with a physiotherapist to understand what stretches he could do in the water to improve his ability to and enjoyment of swimming. He also loves music and plays the keyboard. We have supported him to engage with music therapy and that has opened up a whole new range of instruments that he enjoys.
“I work in a team of five people. We all have an SVQ3 in Social Care. We undertake regular training which keeps us up to speed in the ever-changing social care sector and makes us part of an indisputably qualified industry. We require knowledge and understating of the SSSC Code of Practice, National Care Standards, and we work according to Care Inspectorate expectations. I would like at this point to emphasize as well, we are all educated to university level some finishing with a masters, some with a degree. We all chose social care for various reasons but with one thing in common: we like to care. It’s not because we couldn’t do anything else, or we are unqualified or uneducated. I would like to wish this stereotype away, and the Scottish Government really value social care workers would help with that.
“Valuing our social care workers by offering a minimum of £13 per hour is investing in them. It will help recruitment, turnover, and encourage youngsters to get in the industry. But more importantly it will send the right message to our society - human right matter – and in a sector dominated by female workers, women matter.”
Julie Gatineau, Wellbeing Practitioner.
