Deciding what you want to do with your life can be a difficult decision. There are so many options! When trying to narrow the field, many people think about the purpose of their work. You spend many hours a week at your job, so it’s not only important that it’s fulfilling to you, but that it does good in your community as well.
Sometimes it can be challenging to know how to help others because there are so many needs. A Certificate III in Individual Support allows you to have a personally fulfilling career by providing the training you need to know how to best support people who need assistance in your community. Here are six ways that you could use your training.
1. Residential Support Worker
Children living in a residential home need reliable care. As a residential support worker, you can be the stable individual in a child’s life. Residential support workers work on a team of other carers to provide 24-hour care to the clients in their facility.
You might cook and clean for clients, transport them to school, activities, and appointments, and help with homework or simply play. You’ll develop relationships with your clients and support them in their emotional and social development.
2. Client Assistant
Some clients in a residential care home may have physical, emotional, or social disabilities. As a client assistant, you will work closely with a small number of individuals to support them in the community.
You might attend work with a client and help them learn their tasks, teach them time management strategies, and assist them in navigating social interactions on the job. You might help with shopping, transportation, or organising appointments. Your goal will be to help your clients develop the skills they need to function more and more independently in society.
3. In-Home Respite Worker
As an in-home respite worker, you’ll provide a much-needed safety net for seniors and their regular carers. Caring for an ageing loved one is a full-time, emotionally taxing job. In order to provide excellent care, regular carers need a break.
As a respite worker, you’ll step in to provide that break so that regular carers can have a day off to attend to their own needs, go on a family vacation, or rest when they get sick. The senior you care for will also benefit from meeting someone new—you! You’ll be able to attend to the client’s regular needs and possibly go on an outing, play a game, or do some other activity that makes the difference in routine enjoyable for the client as well.
4. Community Access Coordinator
For individuals with physical and mental limitations, it’s important to have a safe place to go during the day. As a community access coordinator, you’ll work with these individuals to provide a safe environment that will encourage each person to develop their own skills and interests. You will reach out to local businesses and individuals to coordinate jobs, activities, and volunteers.
You’ll create a personalised programme for each individual with specific goals that you and other team members will help the clients achieve so that they can also contribute to their community in meaningful ways.
5. Nurse’s Aide
In a hospital setting, nurses have a lot to do, and as a nurse’s aide, you can help them provide vital care to patients. In this career, no two days will be the same.
You’ll help patients with eating and drinking. You’ll take vital signs. You’ll assist with personal cleanliness, using the bathroom, and repositioning patients. You also act as a liaison between the patients and their nurses and doctors by helping them voice concerns or questions.
6. Family Support Worker
Being a parent is hard. When you have to worry about your family’s safety, housing, or food, it gets harder. A family support worker helps families in many ways.
You may assess the safety of children in a home one day and help a different family find emergency housing the next. You could work with children in foster care, support survivors of domestic abuse, or help families of children with special needs understand their rights at school.
A career that focuses on helping others will give you personal fulfillment and make a significant impact in your community.