What is attendant care?

Attendant care involves providing assistance for people with disabilities to perform tasks they would normally be doing for themselves. Attendant care services focus on maximising the participant’s independence across a variety of settings.

 

 

 

What is attendant care?

Attendant care involves providing assistance for people with disabilities to perform tasks they would normally be doing for themselves.

Attendant care services include personal assistance, domestic assistance, assistance to access the community, gardening, rehabilitation support, registered nursing and home maintenance. The type of assistance provided to the participant may include physical assistance, prompting and/or supervision.

Attendant care services focus on maximising the participant’s independence across a variety of settings: home, work/vocational activities and community/avocational activities, with the aim of facilitating a return to their former roles or developing new functional skills and roles.

Attendant care services should be centred on the participant and their family and be the most age appropriate and least restrictive response to meet their needs.

 

Worker titles

There are many titles that are used for workers doing attendant care including:

Attendant care workers

Attendant care workers: Refers to workers providing support that may include personal care and also include supporting the person in the community.

Personal care workers

Personal care workers: Refers to workers providing support that may include: assistance with personal care e.g. feeding, drinking, toileting, personal hygiene, grooming and dressing; and personal administration e.g. personal correspondence.

Sometimes personal care workers are called personal carers.

Community support workers

Community support workers: Refers to workers providing support that may include personal care and also include supporting the person in the community.