To think people look down on care assistants

[Fjdowkrialkakvk]

And many other low paid jobs in general.
I went to university but I work predominantly as a HCA. I also work one day a week in a 'professional' role related to my degree.
Fortunately I am a relatively well-paid care assistant, earning £2 an hour more than the minimum wage. Many care homes or companies pay the bare minimum wage. I also get time and a half on all bank holidays which not everyone does.

Part of my role involves community care. I've had a client's daughter tell me she was 'surprised' i was in this role as I seemed intelligent and like I had more to offer.
I just take comments like that as tone deaf. I've also had some families of clients who clearly look down at you even though you're assisting their family member to live.
Just earlier I was at a lady's home and her granddaughter was there staying for a couple of days. She asked me to go and do her Grandma's washing up.
The Granddaughter could have bloody done it herself, it's just laziness and probably thinking they're too good to do it themselves.

It's considered a low skill role, and there's a common misconception that high pay must always mean high responsibility and vice versa.

I am physically and verbally assaulted by dementia residents, deal with medication and care equipment, I believe care assistants have a lot of responsibility. Luckily we have many appreciative residents and families.

Has anybody ever felt that such work is looked down upon or considered lowly?

I completely agree, when people find out I have a degree they ask me why on earth im doing this job and why haven't I become a nurse, why do I settle for a band 2 etc. I actually really really love my job and the fact that I get to spend more time talking to my patients and doing one on one care. The nurses have an incredibly difficult job and work really hard but unfortunately the higher up you go the less tine you get with the actual patients . That's why I mainly get offended, having a degree does not mean I am too good for the job.

@JudgeRindersMinder

I couldn’t hold the carers who helped look after my dad in any higher regard! These amazing people helped me retain the single shred of sanity I had at the time. Unfailingly good humoured and they really did care about him and about us as his family, they were fantastic, every single one of them, they went above and beyond in so many aspects of their job

I feel the same about the carers who looked after my mum in the nursing home. It would have been impossible for anyone to provide better care.

I feel the same as you but I think the whole of social care is looked down on, especially by some in health care. During the worst of the pandemic we couldn't get doctors or CPNs or physios etc, we were deemed worthy of doing even more roles such as certifying deaths, bladder scans etc. As soon as they came back in it was back to "what do you know you're just a care home".

I love my job but the pandemic brought me to my knees. I was managing a care home, we were short staffed and I was not the type of manager to pressure staff to cover when they had gone above and beyond anyway. The owners were the type to pressure me though and forced me to work all day then all night then all day because they guilt tripped me into it. I knew no one else would do the shift and the owners refused to pay for agency or even time and a half or something for existing staff. I reported them to CQC and I left. I now work as a senior carer and have the love and passion for my career back.

@Onlyforcake

Indeed. I did home care briefly. Some of the notes that were left to us from family members were so rude. One left a note asking us to change all the bedding (in the other rooms). I think he mistook our job role as we were there to care for his father, not to clean the house!!

Another left a sarcastic note informing us she did not appreciate us stealing her mothers tea bags, when the real back story was the old lady had hid the teabags herself as she didn't want her daughter staying for tea.

"Here comes the toilet people now mum" "you've wasted your life" 2 shitty comments from hundreds. To the second one I had an answer PEOPLE LIKE ME WILL ALWAYS HAVE A JOB . we will ALWAYS be needed.

@Feilin

Before my first shift in the home I had a welcome phone call from HR as it was a national social care provider.

She told me the first thing I would do was "you will put your little apron on".....said in the most patronising of tones.

@JollyWilloughby

I’ve been a carer. I also have a degree in health and social care.

It’s an important job but it chips away at your confidence because you spend a lot of your time doing personal care.

There’s no real elegant way to put this but when you are spending your days continuously cleaning 💩 it gets to you!

The voice inside your head knows you could be putting your degree and skill set to better use.

Maybe ask yourself why you’re always going for the assistant roles?

I had this too. I worked in care for a number of years and just had a point where I'd emptied my last bedpan. In Dom care some jobs you are literally there to hoist someone over a toilet. And a lot of people know that and look down on you. Even this horrible trainer called us all bottom wipers.

That part definitely chipped away at my confidence and self esteem. Some of the people I looked after weren't all that nice either, I was looked down on by a few clients over the years and called an idiot a few times.

It's difficult to resolve this as carers do a really necessary job. Maybe I just didn't have the personality to stomach it long term unlike others. My mum is a carer and I've seen it affect her confidence too. Shame as you can make good money in it, she does live in care.

If I was going to work in health care again I would train as a nurse.

@Imlovinglife

I don't know if "look down" is the right word.

I will, however, admit that when I see people doing hard and low paid jobs, I quietly thank my stars I was born with a good brain and the ability and discipline to learn and study.

Obviously, I keep that to myself.

We all think that a bit sometimes. Admit it!

Because people doing low paid jobs haven't studied? I have 10 GCSEs all a-c, 4 a levels, a national diploma, and a BA Hons degree. And went to a private school for a year on an academic scholarship Still worked as a home carer

I'm going to admit it does chip away at my confidence too sometimes

I do a job that plenty of people look down on, I've actually had strangers say "I don't know why you'd do this job!"

I do the job I do because it's hugely flexible and has been great for fitting round my kids/family life, and it actually pays really well because I'm really good at it (I expect people assume I'm on minimum wage)

As for care workers, I'm sure anyone who's had relatives in a care home thinks you do a wonderful job and thinks you should be paid a lot more!

Thats awful @JollyWilloughby sadly not uncommon. Such an underappreciated job we do. Underpaid Understaffed .

My Dad died recently but he had carers and they were angels. I am full of admiration for them. What would we do without you?

I think it involves great skill, is tremendously hard work, and extraordinarily valuable.

I’m sorry people aren’t respectful of you, that’s really poor.

But I suspect the people who express surprise are just being honest. It’s not a job graduates would normally do (long term) and I’d guess they are just thinking that your skills might be put to even better use if you were a health visitor, for example.

@Musomama1

The trainers are the worst. I remember one session and the trainer started off with some ground rules on how to “behave”.

It was throughout the pandemic and the comment massively triggered me. I knew it was said in a derogatory way and so I absolutely didnt behave.

In fact I behaved very badly for her. I asked her questions she was unable to answer because she didnt have the intelligence and I gave her the exact same tone of contempt that she had started the training session off with.

That’s why some people cannot remain in care, particularly if you are capable of higher paid roles. It chips away at you and you start believing that even despite having a degree it’s probably all you’re good for and that’s sad.

Maybe if they paid more and developed staff it could be very different but that’s never going to happen. Social care is so woefully underfunded.

@dangermouseisace

Totally agree. Caring is actually a highly skilled and difficult job, and it requires constant training! The rate of pay should be much higher to attract intelligent and skilled people into the caring profession, and to retain them.

I think that's the problem. It should be highly skilled, but unfortunately for most jobs in care homes, you don't need any qualifications. It therefore attracts people who often don't have the necessary skills and as a result, it's minimum wage work. So let's be honest, it's not going to attract the sort of people needed for the job.

"I remember one hot day last summer feeling dizzy with blistered feet. I had solely changed one residents pad with him hitting me at the same time. Very dangerous practice but no staff and no instruction. He soiled again…. I changed him again…. He hit out again ….. he did this 3 times. I could feel myself getting angry. I didn’t want to be that person.
I took a deep breath, sat on the floor and cried. He looked confused."

This is such a familiar situation. No staff and no instruction.
I was never trained. Just got the job and was expected to dive right in, no prior experience, only to find later that my colleagues too were doing things wrong (moving and handling was absolutely unacceptable) and they should never have been expected to show others. We're drowning in paperwork. We have a short time to get multiple immobile people up, washed and dressed. Each one taking a good half hour each but needing to get 4 or more done an hour. The math doesn't work or the care they get is sub standard.

And when we're not working for just over a tenner an hour, with unpaid breaks that you can't actually take because there's no time between jobs, you then find out that you have to spend your days off at home undertaking online training and passing dozens of mandatory courses. Unpaid.

Sometimes I guess I do look down on carers, but only for us being daft enough to do it and take that crap. But what can I say? We do it for the people. It's what we do to help those who need our help.

That isn't my experience (some home some dom care). Relatives DO NOT appreciate care workers in the slightest. So many will also tell you 'you should be paid hundreds blah blah' they dont mean it at all. For extra work I actually work doing billing, shocking. They want carers to work extra time, out of hours for free, such as one client's son expects the carer to be in the door in ppe 10 minutes before and after a call and to do no notes or office calls (these would always be about the clients care, eg missing medications, queries about equipment) or he doesn't want to pay for the 60 mins of the call. I'm sure he, the solicitor would baulk at giving any of his time for free. They query why a care worker on an overnight sleep call gets those hours . It's not a job that you do for respect or appreciation.

My son is a care assistant for adults with autism/special needs. He has to deal with physical and verbal abuse, daily. One resident accused my son of hitting him (which he obviously didn't, but he was temporarily suspended while a full investigation went through. They found out he was innocent but left him without pay for 3 weeks)...

I bow down to his patience the care he shows for these individuals despite the shit he deals with.

Carers are amazing!

(the ones you see on CCTV abusing patients not so much...., they're shit and vile)

Yea many do.
It's sad as hca's got some recognition during lockdowns for the hard work and dedication, but that seems forgotten now.

I know many hca's and all have different backgrounds and work experiences/ qualifications but one thing in common is the desire they have to care for others.

Totally under-appreciated. It's quite sad.

@NeedAnOffSwitch

I was never trained for anything. Moving and handling, even using the hoist. Their care plans mostly ignored, people with swallowing disorders left with packets of crisps that they could choke on, people being left in the same clothes, underfed, underwatered, too many residents, too little staff!

And don’t get me started on the unpaid mandatory courses that you have to do in your own time, after spending your life at work working from 7-10!!

@Imlovinglife

I don't know if "look down" is the right word.

I will, however, admit that when I see people doing hard and low paid jobs, I quietly thank my stars I was born with a good brain and the ability and discipline to learn and study.

Obviously, I keep that to myself.

We all think that a bit sometimes. Admit it!

What a dickhead comment

What a dickhead comment

Totally

It is a highly skilled job. Every day I remember the very young nursing home care assistant who knelt by my OH's bed to gently clean his mouth when his life was coming to an end. She talked softly to him. I was blown away by her courage and skill and humanity.

Hold your head up high - the job requires intelligence and sensitivity, and an ability to think ahead and put yourself in someone else's place. Not skills that everyone is blessed with.

@ellie21

I'm sorry anyone has made you feel this way. The work you do is WONDERFUL.

This. And, done properly, it's very skilled.

I was a hospital cleaner. I was in a corridor one day cleaning a door, and overheard a lady telling the child with her that they need to do well at school, otherwise they would end up like me.

All jobs need filling, even the ones that many would consider the bottom. If no one filled those roles, society would be absolutely fucked.