personal care assistant.

The daily tasks of a personal care assistant depend on the clients they work for and their needs. Some of the common responsibilities include:

• assisting with personal hygiene: as a personal care assistant, you help your client improve their wellbeing. That involves assisting them with personal hygiene tasks like showering. You also help them dress, brush their teeth and use the toilet.
• managing household tasks: as a personal care assistant, you help your clients with household tasks. For instance, you wash the dishes and do laundry. Sometimes, you cook for your clients or help them perform other household tasks, like cleaning.
• running errands for clients: when you work in residential settings, your job involves running errands for the clients. That involves grocery shopping and helping them perform chores like walking their dogs or attending community events. Sometimes, you do minor bookkeeping tasks for your clients, like creating a budget or preparing meal plans and ensuring the ingredients are available in the house.
• helping clients with medication: as a personal care assistant, you are trained to perform minor medical tasks. For instance, you can change bandages and clean wounds for your clients. You may also administer medication. Sometimes, you help them take temperature and blood pressure readings and create a schedule for their medications. You also assist them with rehabilitation exercises to help them regain their fitness.
• providing emotional support: as a personal care assistant, you support your client's physical needs, but you also provide emotional support to the client and their family. You offer companionship and encourage them to talk about their condition. You answer any medical questions they have and ensure the family understands the patient's condition. When you observe changes in a client's behaviour, you ensure they receive the help they require.

Personal support workers perform their duties in various environments. You can work in patients' homes if you are self-employed or employed by an agency. You work with the same client daily, a couple of different clients a day, or with different clients on different days of the week. Your work environment depends on the patients you take on and what kind of needs they have hired you to help with. When you work for a care facility, you work indoors. Expect to be active in either environment, as many of your tasks include physical activity. The tasks include helping patients move about and performing some household chores.

Depending on your employer and the industry you work in, your colleagues might include allied health assistants, pharmacists, home care workers and caregivers. You might also be working in close proximity to personal carers and childcare assistants, as well as other specialists that could include, but not be limited to, psychologists, support workers, nurses, paediatric nurses, mental health nurses and paediatricians.

Your work schedule as a personal care assistant is not predictable. Ill or older adults need care at all hours of the day, so you work any shift where you're needed. If you're self-employed, you can decide which jobs you pick up based on the hours and the shifts the client needs. You will likely work daytime, evening or overnight shifts in a care facility. There are opportunities to work full-time or part-time hours as a personal support worker.

The career outlook is promising for personal care assistants, with job growth of 18.8% in the next five years. As a personal care assistant, your career path depends on your interest. You can work in the health care or social assistance sectors. You also have opportunities in the direct client care sector. For instance, some personal care assistants become aboriginal health workers or care workers and progress to care manager roles or senior aboriginal community care workers.

Finding your care assistant job through Randstad provides important advantages such as:

• a wide variety of training and development opportunities
• an experienced contact person to provide help if needed
• a range of opportunities in your area
• get paid weekly or monthly, depending on the job
• temporary and permanent contracts

Want a permanent contract? A temporary job as a personal care assistant is often a stepping stone to an attractive permanent job. Every year, thousands of people earn a permanent contract with great employers thanks to a temporary job found through Randstad. What's more, many companies recruit their permanent employees through Randstad too.

A personal care assistant provides regular support for people who need it due to illness, surgery or being elderly and unable to perform certain tasks. The support ranges from simple medical tasks to helping someone dress or shower to shopping and making meals. You provide a wide range of tasks for your clients or perform just a few duties daily.

Because you provide extra care to someone who is ill or vulnerable, you must be kind, compassionate, and trustworthy. You are a companion for your client or patient, so it is important to be friendly and caring. Basic life skills are usually all you need for daily tasks like cooking, cleaning and running errands.

Being a personal care assistant is an excellent way to get into the medical field before formal education or training. The role is a stepping stone to nursing and other medical positions. It's a good career if you genuinely want to help the needier individuals in your community.

A caregiver and a personal care assistant provide help in very similar ways with household tasks. Both often work in the client's home. However, caregivers have fewer responsibilities as they usually do not dispense medication or perform medical tasks.

Applying for a personal care assistant job is easy: create a Randstad profile and search our personal care assistant job offers for vacancies in your area. Then simply send us your CV and cover letter. Need help with your application? Check out all our job search tips here.