Why do some people think working in a care home is easy and something anyone out of work can/should do?

[ApriltoNovember]

My dd is 17 and in college. For the last year she has been trying to find a part time job because frankly she wants to start earning money. She has had little luck so far and endless applications later still hasn't secured herself a job.

I asked on our town's community FB page if anyone else's teen/younger adult dc was experiencing similar issues (and it seems many are). I have had so many replies telling me that she should get a job in a care home because the care industry is crying out for staff.

I know this to be true because a) I am a PA/carer for disabled people myself and b) a carer for my elderly mum who has advanced Alzheimer's disease.

But the comments really annoyed me because it seems so often that caring, for some reason is seen as an easy option and a job that anyone can do, even someone straight out of school with no qualifications or skills. In reality, this could not be further from the truth. Caring is bloody hard work and caring for someone with advanced dementia and double incontinence or severe learning difficulties is even harder and really NOT a job for the faint-hearted. All of my mum's carers have been chosen because they have years of experience and are genuinely caring and kind people and even the youngest one who is 26 has a naturally kind and caring personality and is not at all fazed by what she has to deal with.

Mum went into respite care in a home last year. It was in a local town which has a high unemployment rate. The home was full of young care workers and you could tell were only doing the job because there were very few options and most looked bored out of their brains.

Caring can be an extremely rewarding but often thankless and messy job and to think there are so many people out there believing if a person can't find work they may as well just go get a job in care as a last chance option. Yes, maybe a small percentage may go on to enjoy it but many do drop out. It's such a poor misconception that caring is a basic, unskilled thing which anyone can do or should do just because it is a job sector which often has many available vacancies (and that should tell you something for a start).

IMO, it is a job which should be given more credit (and better paid). At the end of the day many of us will reach old age and with dementia now being the most prolific disease amongst the elderly it's a sad possibility for many of us that we could end up needing to be cared by others and would all these people recommending 16/17 year olds go into care because they need any old job want their arses wiped by them?

I know a man who was found fit for work after a reassessment of his benefits. He has not worked for about 30 years, and he is being made to apply for care job. He is totally unsuitable for them, but he is scared about being left with no money.

Tbh the situation is grim. Care work IS a skilled role. Anticipating a person's needs,knowing when something is wrong,being able to build a rapport with the person. Then there is the physical care part..personal care dressing,bathing,toilet,changing pads,helping someone to eat.In my experience there have never been enough staff. It can take over an hour to help one person eat.. it can take longer to encourage a person to have a wash,change clothes. There are not enough staff to provide person centred care. It is always a rush..very very rare to have quality time.It is demoralising. Often the training is patchy too. It is interesting how jobs caring for children in nurseries and caring for elderly are deemed low skilled and paid a pittance...and 'anyone' should be able to do it. This just is not the case.
Many care/ nursing homes are owned by companies not in UK ..am sure shareholders etc do pretty well out of them.

It's a vicious circle - because workers don't stay long, and are unsuitable, and unskilled the ones who ARE good get to firefight endless issues rather than improve peoples lives.

Then look on here at any posts from parents whose DC are ND. The ones with school refusal, aggressive meltdowns, anxiety, challenging behaviors. Those young people grow into adults, who will often have paid carers of some sort at some point in their life, who will be taking them out to do normal life things (supermarket shop, etc) - encountering all the things that can trigger anxiety or fear or overwhelm, but having to support the person through it all.
Then there are those with significant medical needs that the carer will be expected to deal with alone. Seizures, peg feeding, whatever.
Then theres care homes - agitated behaviour, pressure-cooker atmosphere, deaths. Very few care homes employ people to top up water jugs and smile sweetly anymore.

How many teenagers, looking for casual work, would you really think would do well in a role like that? Why should they be set up to fail, and why should vulnerable people be on the receiving end of that?

It might, but many are not suited to the work. Why should those in need of care have to submit to potentially receiving it from someone who might not do their job properly?

People who have never done this type of work have absolutely no idea of the reality of it. It's is relentless and can be emotionally draining as well
physically demanding. It requires a myriad of skills and a huge amount of patience and kindness no matter how the carer feels at any particular time. It is certainly not a job that just anyone can do. The idea that it is "easy" and "not skilled" is because it has traditionally been thought of as caring or nursing which were always "women's work " and therefore deemed to come "naturally " needing no training or special skills and have traditionally been low paid as a result. That's all rubbish of course. It's very hard work and going into it as a last resort is not going to be the best for the people in need of the care

Yep, a bad carer can be very dangerous.

There are young people who are suited to the work and others who will never be whatever their age.
So I wouldn’t be offended by the suggestion to try care work - it is plentiful after all. I appreciate just how hard it is and believe it should be seen as skilled work and paid as such.

Of course not any teensger but maybe one who is planning to become a nurse or other health care professional its good experience and you get to experience the realities of caring/ health care at a young age many teens who are planning a career in nursing / Health will start at 18 anyway.

17 year olds can't get jobs because recent grads are filling them up. They are better qualified, older, have no other commitments. DD23 has only got a p/t role in retail atm, and she has a first class masters. It's as tough market.

Interestingly she did, when much younger, do volunteering in a old people's home. Just company though. She quite enjoyed it on a basic level, but would not be able to cope with the hygiene side due to OCD. Also you need to be pretty resilient with the old men who can be a bit touchy feely.

I was in my 20s when I started working in a care home. The first couple of days of going around seeing the residents really bothered me. I didn't know people like that existed. People who are fed through a tube, left in bed watching TV all day. Confused residents getting talked down to by hardened workers who were so emotionally detached that it made me feel uneasy. Not being allowed to speak to residents when they're clearly lonely as there was always something needing doing. I couldn't eat salad cream for a while as the smell took me right back to a residents room that stunk of ammonia/urine. It put me off sex for a while in the sense of, I don't want to say it traumatised me but it kind of did. It changed me and those poor residents were all I could think of. It was a hidden world full of vulnerable people left with horrible workers but not horrible in a way to justify a complaint, just none had an ounce of compassion. Ignoring a woman who buzzed because 'she's only doing it because she's bored/lonely'. Disturbing stuff.

So, no. I would not want a teenager seeing what I saw. I don't think a teenager should be doing intimate care without having prior experience of seeing someone, while growing up, needing it. If they'd been around a grandparent and have an understanding of how 'heavy' the reality of caring is, then fair enough. But, because anyone can do care, alot of the carers aren't the type of people I'd trust with a dog. But because there isn't anything in particular to complain about, I assume it's just the way it is. They don't get quality care because they'll just take anyone.

And, as in the ones I worked in, the decent staff leave so the high turnover isn't because of the work, but because of the long standing, miserable, immature, staff. I was even warned in one home by the boss, she apologised saying such and such were horrible but she can't get rid of them without cause, but they were awful to work with.

I agree OP, this job requires a lot more skills and experience than people without experience of the role realise. A friend of DDs went into a role where she was caring for adults with severe mental health and learning difficulties, she had minimal training and supervision. She was put in situations where she was alone with people that were known to be volatile. She was physically assaulted and ended up in A&E. The care company wanted her back into work the next day to face a similar situation. These companies are run for profit and they couldn’t care less about their employees or the people they care for.

That very much depends on the teenager I was working in a nursing home at 17 with no prior experience and I started my nurse training at 19 although it was a long time ago it opened my eyes to the realities of what was involved

Working in a nursing home was my college job- I loved it and was very sad to leave. She might really enjoy a role like that once she’s 18.

@x2boys that's fair, maybe I was just naive but it was just a massive shock to the system for me. I thought it would just be older people tootling about, like just normal, able, elderly people living in a home from home kind of thing. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting. It disturbed me how they were left with next to no stimulation. How the carers treated them more as a job to be ticked off than actually caring about them as humans. Fair point though.

I do agree that before a nursing or medical degree it's got to be great experience.

That has sadly been our experience whilst looking around local care homes for my mum as we are needing some respite care soon. So far, each one has left me feeling dreadful and the last one we visited on Saturday actually had me bawling my eyes out all the way home. I can not stop thinking about all those poor people and dd would be the same.

I don't want my mum in respite in any of those places let alone my young sensitive daughter working in such a place.

I can not help but wonder how many of those suggesting care home work have actually set foot in one?

It's definitely no place for very young adults except maybe a very few who may have some existing family caring experience. One of my mum's carers is only 23 and she is wonderful but was a child carer for her mum and younger siblings.

She won't she is not built that way and says she has no interest in such work. We are all different, it will not be everyone's cup of tea.

I thought you had to be 18 to have anything to do with medication. I agree it is a hard, often thankless, pressurised job which can be very rewarding. Carers definately deserve more pay. I know they get NMW or close to and awful hrs. You then see some junior level admin jobs which have weekends off, you never stay back late. let alone clean up waste and they pay more? I always think if the quote society is judged by the way it treats it's most vunerable. I have a friend in the village I live in who works as a self employed carer. She has told me some horror stories about the whole Care industry. The whole visas for carers seems to have backfired resulting in people who are only doing the job for a visa, the elderly often unfortunate racism, food barriers I have heard of cat food being fed to a person. The whole industry needs massive reform hopefully AI will help.

Sorry @ApriltoNovemberdo you think the people who work in care homes aren’t sensitive types too? Maybe they have no choice but to work there?

People who 'have no choice' should not be working in care homes. Care work (and childcare) needs to stop being pushed as a job for people who are not able to do anything else. That is hugely unfair on the people they are looking after.

Vulnerable people should not have care provided by for profit organisations. This applies to care homes for the elderly or paid care in the community and independent specialist schools and care of those with complex conditions as adults.

Either the family or the state are paying a huge amount for private care because of the inadequacy of state care.

Privatisation of health care did not start with the most healthy and least vulnerable paying a little more.

Care workers lack necessary qualifications or experience and suffer low pay. Meanwhile shareholders make great profits.

Those requiring care and the direct providers of care are the biggest losers.

Absolutely this. Anyone going into care work should have to demonstrate they are the right fit for the job before being employed. Sadly, I have my reservations as to whether this is the case a lot of the time.

Well said. You've hit the nail right on the head here imo. 👏

Not really, no.

I started my training aged 22 and was the youngest in my cohort. Average age was probably 28-40.