• Wix Facebook page
  • LinkedIn Social Icon
  • Wix Twitter page

   info@zakumi.com.au                           (02) 89167428

 

Join our mailing list

Australia’s Social Care Frontline Needs More “Care”.

January 12, 2016

|

Marika Kontellis

I am glad I chose Social Work and am privileged to have worked with so many people and their communities. I’ve worked in nursing homes, “group homes” for people with disability, youth detention centres, jails, hospitals, people’s homes and “the streets”. I did my work in Sydney, remote Indigenous communities, the USA, England and in Greece. There is no doubt my choice to work in social care has led me to meet people and experience things that have shaped my view of the world.

 

But it’s not easy work and like most “care” professions it is undervalued. The burn out rate is high and the impact of people’s, sometime horrific and mostly unjust life experiences can be exhausting and make you sick. But (thankfully) people are choosing to work in social care even though they can get “better money” working elsewhere.

 

In the early days I was working with women and their children escaping domestic violence. I was fine for the first few months but as women began to disclose the awful circumstances that had led them to leave their own home with their children, I began to lose sleep. The monthly supervision session with my “senior” was useless and more about my administrative accountability (how many home visits had I conducted, how many referrals had I made, how many clients had I seen) than supporting me to understand and deal with the trauma of the work.

 

I moved on and worked with people with mental health problems. Most of them admitted to a psychiatric hospital because of their illness. I was groped, spat on, sworn at and threatened. All in a day’s work. I knew then that my work would centre around creating contexts that enable practitioners to support people in better ways.   

Delivering care in institutional settings (hospitals, nursing homes, jails etc.) is very different than delivering tailored care in a person’s home. In an institutional setting there is always someone else to rely on. You are not alone. Working directly with someone in their own home can be very challenging. Building our front line skills and experience is important but focussing programs on emotional resilience is equally important.

In a changing social care system, we must turn our attention to resourcing our front line people to understand the circumstances that lead to people’s behaviour and choices. To know how to manage their own thoughts and feelings about what they are dealing with and to always be driven by their choice to make a real positive difference.

The work social care practitioners do requires skill and experience. Most of all however it requires a great deal of emotional resilience. Most front liners are unprepared and even worse, unsupported. We must better invest in our front line social care workforce.

Tags:

SOCIAL CARE

AUSTRALIA

SOCIAL CARE SECTOR SPECIALISTS

DISABILITY

AGED CARE

COMMUNITY

Please reload

Featured Posts

Social Technology and the Social Sector

November 10, 2015

The McKinsey Global Institute released an excellent report in 2012 entitled, The Social Economy. Unlocking Value and Productivity through Social Techn...

Tick Tock- The Clock Won't Stop: NDIS Goes Live Tomorrow

June 30, 2016

Remember the chaos and conspiracy theories of 1999. The Y2K bug was going to be catastrophic and people everywhere were planning and creating all sort...

1/2
Please reload

Recent Posts

We cannot assume ‘doing good’ is enough

September 27, 2018

Knowing what customers want and need is so important

September 9, 2018

I Want to Give Back

May 1, 2017

Volunteers are the New Black

April 10, 2017

Sandwich Generation new Social Care Customer

March 23, 2017

Please reload

Archive

September 2018 (2)

May 2017 (1)

April 2017 (1)

March 2017 (1)

December 2016 (1)

November 2016 (2)

October 2016 (3)

September 2016 (3)

August 2016 (2)

July 2016 (3)

June 2016 (3)

May 2016 (2)

March 2016 (2)

February 2016 (1)

January 2016 (3)

December 2015 (5)

November 2015 (5)

October 2015 (2)

Please reload

Search By Tags

AGED CARE

AUSTRALIA

BOARDS

BUSINESS MODELS

CARE

CDC

CDC READY

CHANGE

CLIENTS

COLLABORATION

COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY CARE

CONSOLIDATION

CONSULTING

CONSUMERS

CULTURE

CUSTOMERS

DEMAND

DEPRESSION

DISABILITY

EXPERIENCE

HEALTH

INDEPENDENCE

INNOVATION

LEADERSHIP

LISTENING

MANAGEMENT

MARKET

MERGERS

NDIA

NDIS

NDIS READY

NSW

ORGANISATIONS

PRACTICE

QUALITY AND SAFEGUARDS

REFORM

SERVICES

SKILLS

SOCIAL CARE

SOCIAL CARE SECTOR SPECIALISTS

SOCIAL WORK STUDENT

STRATEGIC PLANNING

STRATEGY

TECHNOLOGY

VALUE

VOLUNTEERS

Please reload

Social care sector specialists sydney
  • Home

  • About

  • Ideas Box

  • Events

  • Our Work

  • Contact

  • Blog

  • More