This month we’re joining Skills for Care in #CelebratingSocialCare
People who work in social care are highly-skilled, passionate and hard-working and it’s important that we all take time to recognise the work that people who work in social care do and the impact this has in supporting people who draw on care to live their lives how they choose. That’s why at Aster Care, we’re joining in on #CelebratingSocialCare this month.
At Aster Care, we have a team of c.30 people including healthcare support workers and key workers to deliver care at home to people with long-term healthcare conditions. In amongst this team, we have Pressure Ulcer Champions, and Dysphagia (swallowing) Champions, out of hours support staff who, together, aim to provide a seamless service to those in need of care at home.
We focus on the training of our staff and are always looking for new courses and new ways of training people to give the best support to our clients.
In April, we’re #CelebratingSocialCare by sharing this blog, and other social media posts, to thank our staff for their commitment to others.
You can get involved in #CelebratingSocialCare too by sharing your support, good news stories and shoutouts for your colleagues on social media tagging @SkillsForCare and using #CelebratingSocialCare.
Showcasing some of our recent achievements
We would like to celebrate the following achievements:
1. Our development of supporting people with Dysphagia i.e., Swallowing Difficulties
- We have trained three Dysphagia Champions – Carey, Jade and Sandra, to lead and guide staff in various areas to promote the safety of service users when eating and drinking.
- Jade has used this role to identify and source a more comprehensive training programme via the for further developing the role to source a more comprehensive training for care staff using an NHS Health Education training programme, Dysphagia Essentials for health and care staff.
- A new observational visit tailored specifically to observe staff assisting those with swallowing difficulties to support them practically, and to include the use of the IDDSi guidelines.
2. Supporting service users to live and die at home
- We would like to acknowledge the staff team who supported our first, and longest person to receive a service from Aster Care who passed away after 14 years in our care. Leigh, Loreta and Amanda were long standing staff members; 14, 14 and 9 years respectively! Thank to them, and other staff who passed through this team and gave excellent support in addition.
3. Celebrating diversity
- We recruit our amazing staff on a values based system and can evidence progression of staff of all ages, backgrounds and ability.
- We welcome overseas staff and those from all backgrounds to have a team that has over 54% of staff from varied cultural backgrounds. We have recently began offering overseas sponsorships where availability has allowed.
- Sandra, one of our long standing stalwart employees is well past pensionable age (we shall not reveal her actual age), but possesses the energy of a gym-attending person in their twenties! Sandra has always gone over and above in her role, not even considering it as that, and has been of dependable support to the office staff over the years as an effective Senior Care Worker who assists in keeping the service running smoothly out of office hours.
- Ese, a young black mother has shown incredible progression and success in her role that within 10 months, has taken on a Senior Care Worker role.
- We have developed Mental Wellbeing, Menopause and Endometriosis policies to support our staff in these areas.
Summary
It’s not just the big things that need celebrating, but the small, everyday things that our staff do; carrying out small activities that they enjoy such as crafting, Scrabble, making cakes, being taken to a cafe or the park, or being read a simple story. Our service users often want to just do the ordinary things that they used to do when they were independent.
Caring for people is such a rewarding role. Our care staff largely work alone and because we only work longer shifts with our service users (no 30 minute pop-ins), there is time to build up a rapport with service users, carry out tasks without being rushed, and getting of sense of achievement at the end of every shift.
If you would like to work for Aster Care, please take a look at our Recruitment tab and apply!
find out about more about some of the services Aster Care provide:
