My home - - - a workplace

The challenges of your home being a workplace

My home is a work place.

I still want it to feel like a home:

  • Privacy
  • Personal
  • Family.

For the workers it's their workplace:

  • Signing on and signing off
  • Communications books
  • Occupational health and safety checks
  • No smoking.

When attendant care is working well:

  • The workers respect you, your home and your privacy.
  • You respect the work.
  • You understand your role and their role.
  • You let the workers get on with the work.
  • You are able to talk with the workers about how they do their work so you can still feel at home in your home and they can get on with the work in their workplace.

 

 

 

 

 

Professional relationship

We try to maintain a relationship with them in a professional way.

All the carers that we have are very nice people and you enjoy their company, but they are there for a purpose. We are always friendly, I ask how they are going, what they are doing, but we try not to get too far into the personal side of things. They are there to provide a support for David, not as David’s friend or as my friend. It’s better to try to keep it on a professional level.

I think the carers are incredibly respectful of my space. When they are here working with David they have an allocated area where they do their work. So, it’s often in David’s room. If they are doing focus tasks, or occupational therapy, or speech therapy they generally try to do it somewhere where there is not a lot of interruption for them, so that they can focus on what they are doing, but also to minimise the intrusion to the rest of the family.

They seem to be very respectful of that, and I’m very appreciative of that.


David's mother

Worker safety

I would treat their home with respect as I would expect anybody to treat mine.

If I saw something that I didn’t think was safe I would discuss it with the client and if the two of us or the three of us if we have a buddy could work out different ways of doing things - bringing beds up to different levels, using hoist for manual handling rather than lifting.

If I found that we couldn’t come to some sort of agreement on things then I would consult my coordinators and it would go on from there. But majority of the time we can usually come to a compromise that is a safe working place for me and is also maintains the privacy that my client has in his own home.


Attendant care worker