Ste's Story - Homecarers Ltd

Here, at Homecarers, we love to engage with our staff and celebrate their successes. We were able to speak to Ste and she shared a little bit about her life, how she got into care work and her experience working in care.

Ste’s story

“I have worked in care since 2015, but before that I worked in a bank. I took redundancy and was wondering at the time what to do next. I have worked in a lot of different industries, but was not sure what to, so when I spoke to my wife at the time, she suggested that I look at care work. She said that the people in our lives, our niece for example, who had learning disabilities, she said I was very good with. So I went into care and I have not looked back.

Most of my actual care roles as a carer have been in supported living, supporting people with severe mental health conditions, and people who could become violent with others. I have been trained in restraints and control and have had to use it from time to time. I always found that I could de-escalate quite well and only had to resort to restraining them on rare occasions – I did this by learning about them, understanding triggers and being able to see when they were struggling, and to see them have a good day where they have not had an episode and went to bed safe and happy was the biggest reward.

One gent I used to support was a man who had lived in care since he was 11 (he was 69 when I supported him). He was a massive LFC fan who used to go to matches, and used to call me big daddy, which was his pet name for me, which I didn’t mind as he didn’t mean it as an insult! He used to say “I have to be good, or big daddy will take me to Anfield in his Everton top!”.

He was a character who used to love banter with staff. He had schizophrenia and bi-polar, so there would be difficult days with his condition, however I loved supporting him and miss him to this day. He passed away 2 years ago and his family invited me to his funeral even though I had left the company by then. It is a relationship I will always cherish and be thankful I met him.

As a co-ordinator, I don’t get to spend time with service users as much as I would like, but I do speak to a lot of them, and for the most part it is always a positive experience – I like to have a laugh with them. I have now worked for 10 years in care/supported living, and I have to say that it’s the most personally rewarding job I’ve ever done!

Yes, it is incredibly difficult at times but it can also be incredibly fun! I do miss caring for people one on one now that I am office based, but I still see it as caring for them to ensure they get the care they need and deserve. I like to think how would I like my mum or dad to be treated, and this is always at forefront of everything I do in HCL. I always try to put the service user at the heart of what I do.