Working as a live-in carer

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m thinking about going to the UK/Europe next year for a working holiday. Being Australian I can get a visa to work in the UK quite easily. One employment option that is marketed towards travellers is work as a live-in carer for clients who are disabled or elderly. There are a number of different agencies, with some offering contracts for as little as 6 weeks time and others requiring at least 3 months. (FTR, the ones that place people for 3+ months seem the most ‘backpacker friendly’…)

Money is good, meals and accommodation included.

Has anyone undertaken this kind of work before? I’m toying with whether it seems like something that I want to, or should, do or not. On one hand:

  • It would be a chance to leave the tourist circuit and live like a local for a few months, which could be a good experience.

  • Like I said, good pay + meals and accommodation seems like a pretty sweet deal.

  • I actually think I wouldn’t be bad at it - My grandmother had motor neurone disease (I think, in the US this is called ALS? Lou Gehrig’s disease?) so I have some experience in this area. I’m a pretty patient person, and friendly and outgoing enough that I feel I could interact with the client’s friends, family, doctor etc with minimal issues.

  • The lifestyle would be quiet, but this could be a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of travel/pub work (another potential employment stint).

  • Sounds odd, but given that a lot of the issues the clients might face (spinal cord injury, disability at a young age etc) kind of scare me, I think it might be good to gain more exposure to this stuff. It is a part of life after all.

On the other hand:

  • I worry that I’m not doing it for the best reasons. After all, I have no intent of working long-term in health care. Sure, the agencies don’t seem to mind that, but would the clients?

  • Wiping people’s butts and so on? Eek. There’s exposure and there’s exposure.

  • Lack of my own social life/independence. Most agencies have a strict no-alcohol policy while you’re employed. I’m not a huge party animal (and besides, I think I’ll have ample opportunity to party during the rest of my time away) but this might affect me more than I think.

  • Personal clash with clients. What if I accept a placement for what sounds like a lovely little lady and she turns out to be a total bitch whose life I have to immerse myself in for 3 months?

  • I currently still live with my parents, so while I’m pretty independent and capable of cooking, cleaning and so forth I’ve never (apart from a few weeks at a time) actually run a household. Would this be a greater challenge than I expect?
    Experiences from anyone who’s done this kind of work, or from those on the other side who’ve employed live-in carers for themselves or loved ones, would be helpful. Also, anyone, feel free to give your opinion on whether this would be a good or bad move for me.

Thanks.

2

I do admin work for a charity in the care sector. Whilst I’ve visited some of the services, and interacted with a lot of support workers and service users, I’ve never done this kind of work myself. I do have some knowledge of how the voluntary care sector works, though. (Or, at the least, how my own charity works.)

I’m assuming you don’t have a qualification in support work (or equivalent)? Support Worker pay needs a Support Worker qualification and lack of one would rule out certain employment options. Government guidelines in the UK mean you must either have, or be working towards, extensive relevant training. Moving and handling, restraint techniques, risk assessment etc.

You’ll usually do shift work so working long hours is inevitable but you should still have decent free time to see the country. Be aware that the sector tends to have a high level of absence (various reasons including stress) so you will be subject to changing rotas and being called into work at short notice.

As for the work itself: IMHO it’s okay to do it for the reasons you’ve stated. However, you absolutely need to be comfortable taking physical care of another human being and a stranger at that, who may be unable to bathe or dress him/herself. You may also do yourself an injustice because, depending where exactly you end up working, it can be a very difficult job. It requires a lot of emotional (and sometimes physical) investment.

My cousin worked at a care home for the elderly before going on to study nursing. She thrived on it. She naturally cares for, and can strike up friendship with, almost anyone she meets. She’s comfortable chatting with an old woman about the benefits of the new Tesco whilst helping her go to the bathroom. She accepts that the elderly gent with dementia who she’s been having a laugh with might stroke his penis and say something lewd as she bathes him.

She found it hard when one of the residents died especially if she was the one who found the body. If she could, she would take a few hours off work to go to the funeral then she’d head straight back to finish her shift. And then she’d come home and she’d make us all laugh by telling us the wee funny things that had been said and done at work that day. Not everyone can do that.

In a job where you are taking care of a fellow human you need to be comfortable and dedicated to be good at it. It’s a very difficult job, though those who stick with it say it is worth it.

After saying all that, a lot depends on exactly what the job entails because care work varies immensely. I wonder if you could provide a link to some of the agencies you’ve been looking into? I might be able to provide more useful info if I have a more specific understanding of what type of job you’d be doing.

3

One agency that I was looking at was ENA: http://www.workuk.com.au/ http://www.ena.co.uk/ (The Australian and UK version of the site).

I’ve heard good things about them, and they do interviews in Australia which would be helpful. However they specify age 23 and above… I would be 22, so I’m not sure whether that would rule me out (due to insurance perhaps? I understand that the carers often drive the client’s cars) or if it’s a general ‘maturity’ guideline that they might be willing to bend…

Another was Active Assistance http://www.activeassistance.com/ which specialises in spinal cord injury. I first saw one of their ads here: http://www.tntjobs.co.uk/job/261691-contract-active-assistance-personal-live-in-care-assistant-england-and-wales.aspx

Do you know much about either of these agencies?

4

Forgot to add, I don’t have any qualifications in support work but the jobs that I’ve seen are advertised as including all the necessary training.

5

What else do you plan to do while in the UK? It seems to me that you might have to cope the issue of being expected to make yourself avalible to the client outside of strictly scheduled times in the same way a live-in nanny would. That could put a crimp in a lot of plans to be away from his/her home for more than a few hours.

6

Actually I was planning to commit to work for a few months and just take it easy longer during this time, then travel more extensively once my contract had finished. I.e use the time working as more of an interlude between travel than a gateway to travel itself. One thing I’ve been trying to find out from Active Assistance is what their deal is with lining up assignments in advance - if I’m prepared to be working for the most part of, say, 3 months and their assignments are only a few weeks long each, I’m not sure if I could arrange to be placed on jobs fairly continuously, or if I would just have to apply independently for each assignment as it came up. If the latter, that raises the question of the likely amount of time/money I’d have to budget for be in between work.
Thanks for the responses so far, don’t feel that I’m limiting myself to any particular company, just trying to get an idea of what’s out there!

7

There’s nothing to think about, it’s short term and you have a chance to live in another culture. Do it, if you don’t I can guarantee 20 years from now you’ll be writing a thread about “things you wish you did but didn’t”

Sure you can say I’ll do it later, but frankly more often than not, it’s later than you think.

And even if you have a bad time, so what? It’s a learning experience and you won’t die from it. I can bet you’ll learn from it

So don’t wait GO do it now. You don’t say how old you are but you’re young. There’s an old saying, “youth is wasted on the young,” Don’t waste your youth. Go and have an adventure. You will not be sorry you did it.

Again it may not be a life changing brilliant expereince, but the opportunity to live in another country and experience another culture is too great to turn down.

So go an do it and in a few months start a thread called “Ask the Australian now living in England.”

:slight_smile: