Support worker Review

My role is to support individuals with a learning disability to live their lives to the fullest. I am responsible for ensuring they take their medication and have the correct food and drink. Each day is different and each individual is different. At the service I work at we have a tenant rota so we know who we are supporting that day and can plan any activities.

I have learnt more about myself in this role than I have in any other role I have ever worked in. I have challenged myself to work to the best of my ability and take on a leadership role within the team to help ensure the smooth day to day running of the care service we provide. I have also learnt a lot about Autism and Learning disabilities.

At first I did not enjoy the programme. My manager at the time enrolled me on this course when me and my partner had just had our 2nd child and the service I was working at was closing down. This made it so difficult to complete the work and meet the deadlines for submission. I did however, really appreciate the support I got from assessor. She was very understanding and offered me a lot of help.

My programme is very well structured and had I been able to meet the deadlines the structure would have worked much better. The assessor helped me work around the online application we needed to use in order to submit the work and did not give me too much work to complete at once.

My employer did not support me as such. I was in the middle of closing down the service I was currently at so that was the sole focus and I had limited opportunity to discuss and work through my assignments. I moved to another service and my managers have been able to support me and give me free time to complete the assignments and go through any questions.

My assessor provides a lot of support and she is always available to help me out when required. When we have our monthly reviews she gives me support to go through question by question so I understand what the question is asking. I am also given constructive feedback when I have completed my work.

I am a firm believer that in order for myself to perform better. I need to be doing something rather than reading up on it. If I read something then I can easily forget it but if I practice it then I somehow learn better. The qualification has taught me new things but it has mainly helped to refresh my own knowledge and make my role better.

There are social activities we can do within our current staff team. I have asked the management if we can look into team building exercises so that we can learn how to work together outside of our job role. It would be nice if the company did provide sports teams in our current area.

No

Mencap for me does not stand out from the crowd in terms of care. The role of a support worker at Mencap has changed throughout the years I have been here. Now they are employing a lot of staff from other countries who cannot speak good english and then it heavily relies on the rest of the staff to pick up the pieces. I am not racist in anyway shape or form. I love to hear about others cultures and backgrounds but in a work environment where we are all meant to be equal, I expect everyone to work to the same standard.

Just be mindful, yes they offer good pay for sleep in rates but the hourly pay is very similar to average pay and for the responsibilities you are required to do. I would expect way more per hour.