Transcript

« View documentary on homepage

Stuart - I get the chance every day to get up and do a job that's different every day. Nobody knows what's going to happen. That's incredibly fulfilling, incredibly rewarding.

Maureen - It just makes me happy that I can make a change to people, to life situations.

Laura - Every day is a challenge. You get different experiences out of it. Just to see smiles on their faces.

David - There's always people that need care, people that need looking after.

Mandy - I can leave work at the end of the day knowing that I've made a difference.

Nilom - I like helping people, and helping people is a good thing.

Stuart - From a personal perspective, it took me a while to find something that almost completed me, and made me feel that I was getting a lot out of every working day. When I moved into Social Care and found the rewards that I got back, that makes me go home happy every day, then I know I'm in the right sector to work in. If you want to get that out of your life, it's the right place to be.

Laura - I've known the young adult himself, Joseph, since he was about 11. We were at primary school together.

Stuart - Sometimes I come home at the end of a week and I think, "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this." It doesn't feel like a job at times.

David - Taking them shopping, helping them get dressed in the morning - it's fantastic - going on day trips out. It's not just working in the care home, it's going out, taking them to visit places.

Stuart - Yesterday, for instance, I ran a football group, I took someone to the pictures...

David - You're getting paid for something you like.

Laura - If people say, "Are you going out on Saturday night?" I say, "No, I'm going out with Joseph." I don't say, "I'm going to work."

Stuart - When you work in the community or work in this sector, you've got to have a reflection of who you work with. There's got to be different cultural aspects, there's got to be men and women there.

Nilom - The younger people should come out for this job, from different cultures and from different languages as well.

Laura - You can start at any age.

Stuart - You just need a passion, don't you?

David - When I walk in in the morning and they're glad to see me, that makes me feel that I'm making a difference to their life.

Mandy - You feel like you're worthwhile.

David - It makes me feel good to go to work.

Maureen - They say to me, "Oh, I really would like to make a cup of tea. I used to do that before, but my leg is giving way." Things like that. So it's for me now to identify if I can make a change to that and bring them back to what they used to do before.

Laura - You're not there to do things for them, you're there to help them.

Stuart - Absolutely. Every situation that I've got is, "How would I like to be treated? What would I think would be beneficial?"

Maureen - You've got to be patient, you've got to listen.

Nilom - Especially elderly people. They need really care, support and help as well. You have to judge all the time what they need, how you can support them, how you can understand them.

Stuart - I enjoy the feeling of getting people back to doing just everyday things that I might not think that they're that important but actually to that individual, it makes a huge difference. It's hugely important just to get out the house, go for a game of football, listen to some music, get excited about things again, and that excites me.

Maureen - It's quite good to see that you can actually help them to promote their independence.

David - It's nice when they ask for you as well. It's nice when they ask security if such and such is on, or they want to know when you're coming on shift, that's nice. They come up with some stories, don't they?

Laura - I love looking at their photos.

Laura - Joe can't speak, but if I walk in a room and he starts laughing and clapping his hands, that makes me feel at home, it makes me feel like I should be there.

David - You can go into the workplace and do your NVQs there and work and earn money as you're doing your NVQs. You can do your NVQ 2s and then go on to your 3s, your 4 is management and then progress your career.

Nilom - I haven't done NVQ 2, so I will be going to do more study.

Stuart - I get a morning off every week and I go and do counselling qualifications. I've got a few counselling qualifications from that study period. But also, because it's the NHS, there's the opportunity of secondments to different roles, and to try out different roles. That's what I'm looking into. There's routes into nursing, routes into social work. So it does give you a good baseline to go and try different areas.

David - I want to study in dementia and go all the way with dementia.

Stuart - I guess people don't understand the diversity of roles within this sector, do they?

David - There's loads of different paths. From being a carer you can go into nursing, social working. There's a lot of different paths and you can pick which one you want.

Maureen - You're not restricted to what you're practising. You can move away from there and you can transfer the skills as well.

Nilom - And there's so many opportunities for Social Care.

Mandy - The managers who I've met have been a carer and gone up through the ranks, so they've got the experience behind them and they've been in your position as well.

Stuart - There's people who I work with who've got 35, 40 years of psychiatric experience, and I guess there's very little that they haven't seen and can help you with. I've just learnt so much in such a short space of time about how to deal with it, and sometimes just knowing that what you're doing is OK.

Maureen - It's the drive, it's an inspiring profession.

Nilom - People should come to this job for caring people, for community and love.

Laura - Just being able to see him interact with people gives me this warm feeling inside. And knowing that I'm there just to guide him.

Maureen - Think about the achievements and how positive you can be at the end of the day, making the change to somebody's life.

Stuart - I think it's nice, as well, to start on a Monday morning and not know what the week is going to bring.

Laura - Every day is a different day.

Stuart - It's not scripted. You don't turn up to the office and you know exactly what's in your in-tray and that's it. Anything can happen and I think that's kind of exciting, really.

David - You're not stuck behind a desk in an office. You can go out shopping with your clients, do the day-to-day things. It's not an office job, it's a life experience job.

Stuart - It took me a long time, maybe, to find out and realise what was important to me and to my life, and what I wanted to get out of work, really. I wanted to make sure I was getting everything back and it was something that meant a lot to me and meant I was making a difference. I think in Social Care, I found that, and if people are interested in thinking about that kind of role, I would just say, "Go for it," because it's incredibly rewarding. It gets you up in the morning, you feel you're making a real difference in people's lives. At the end of the day, that's important for us all to do.