What to Expect When You Start Working as an Aged Care Worker
What is an aged care worker?
The aged care field refers to providing support to elderly people to help them manage their daily routine and personal tasks. The aged care workers work from their clients’ residences or in-home facilities where they look after their food, tidying and cleaning, and mobility concerns.
Typically, the aged care worker performs the following duties for the elderlies;
- Preparing food
- Feeding
- Showering
- Assisting in their movement
- Helping them escort for socializing activities like parks, cafes, malls, etc.
The prime motive of aged care courses is to provide learners with tools so they can give holistic support to the aged clients. The workers ensure their physical, mental, and emotional stability. From reading to playing with them, the aged care worker ensures that their clients are pleased, safe, and healthy.
Working as an aged care worker, you can opt to work in varied roles, including:
- Personal care worker
- Community care worker
- Respite worker
Why Should you Become an Aged care worker?
Taking up a career as an aged care worker will bring many benefits and open growth avenues for you. Some of these include;
- Vast Employment opportunities Across Australia
Australia offers enormous employment opportunities for aged care workers and the government has predicted a major hike in employment opportunities in this field over the next five years. This means the aged care field is sure to grow and open many avenues for growth market expansion for the workers.
- Improving the Quality of Life
Being elderly and alone can be very challenging both physically and emotionally. Many elderlies struggle to perform their daily chores while the loneliness depletes their emotional and mental health. An aged care worker gets the opportunity to build a strong connection with a client and improve their quality of life.
- Relish a rewarding career
Aged caregivers’ work revolves around the lives of vulnerable elderlies who need constant support. The job allows you to work towards improving their lives and making them feel better every day. This scope of work makes the aged caregiver’s job very rewarding and fulfilling.
How to Become an Aged Care Worker?
To become an accredited aged care worker in Australia, you need to undertake certain aged care courses. The following two courses will help you achieve a fulfilling career in the field.
Certificate III in Individual Support Courses
The individual support courses will help you to kickstart your career in the aged care field. It will teach you the rudimentary elements you must learn to support the elderly. Certificate III in individual support will equip you with the tools to provide personal care and support for residents of in-home care facilities and other centers of the community.
This course touches various points like helping the elderlies with medication and food as well as working with mobility impaired elderlies.
Certificate IV in Ageing Support
If you want to boost your skill in the aged care field and choose to specialize in this career path, Certificate IV in Ageing Support will help you achieve that. This course will assist you in acquiring managerial and leadership roles in the field.
The course enables you to learn high-order skills for specialized tasks thus providing abundant opportunities in the aged care industry. These skills include;
- Supporting elderlies in case of loss and grief
- Intervention implementation in case of an emergency for high-risk elderlies
- Individualized service planning and delivery
- Sustaining 360-degree health concerns
Job Market Outlook for Aged Care Workers
Aged care workers are in demand across Australia and will continue to grow as the population ages. The popular job market also enables the workers to draw competitive salary packages nationally. It also provides access to managerial roles once you gain the required knowledge and enough experience in this field, making it a rewarding career to start.
Aged care support is a field that will help you thrive and grow while giving you fulfilling rewards. If you think it is a perfect field for you, explore the aged support courses and embark on a new career journey today.
Image source: Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
