Know your support worker role

The previous chapter of this handbook will have helped you to understand yourself better through understanding what it means to be ‘self-aware’. You will have understood that being self-aware can enable you to be more person-centred as a support worker. Support work in health and social care is about human interaction, and we use our awareness of self as a tool to care for others. This chapter builds upon your knowledge of self by asking you to learn and understand your own support worker role. You may argue that you understand your role as it is what you do on a day-to-day basis – who else should understand your role better than you? We do not dispute this. The aim of this chapter is to facilitate you being able to explain what health and social care support work is. In this chapter, and others, we use the term ‘context’ as it means that it looks at the bigger picture, of which, we argue, you are an important part. To do this, we will detail the scope of the role and the different names and titles that are used under the umbrella of ‘support work’. You will be surprised at the breadth of the role. It may even give you ideas for your own career pathway (see Chapter 9). We will look at what studies have found in terms of the number of support workers in the United Kingdom, where they work and how much they get paid! We will also detail some issues in terms of the value of the role. We think you will agree that there have been times when you have been valued and times when you have not been valued. We conclude with our belief that, by understanding the ‘context’ of your role, you will be able to articulate how valuable your role is in the delivery of health and social care. We know that you know this already, but can you explain it to others? This chapter aims to facilitate the reader being able to explain what health and social care support work is. The traditional picture of a doctor, nurse, occupational therapist, physiotherapist or social worker providing care is changing; it has had to. Qualified staff often called ‘professionals’ are not able to provide all of the care or support that is needed. ‘Skill mix’ is a term that has been used for a long time to describe how it is more cost-effective and a better use of skills for people to provide care based upon their skills. Kitson cites times when health professions have congruence with health policy. It has been argued that support workers are now congruent with policy given the drive for cost efficiency