New peer support network for domiciliary care workers

This #GoodNewsFriday, Rachel Kelso, Founder of Homecare Workers’ Group, talks to us about their free and independent support network for homecare workers.

Homecare represents one of the largest components of the social care workforce. The latest edition of Skills for Care’s annual ‘State of’ report revealed that there are currently 13,733 CQC-regulated domiciliary care locations in England, with 580,000 staff. As one of those members of staff, I wanted a share a small part of my story, including how I came to establish Homecare Workers' Group - a free, not-for-profit support network open to any domiciliary care worker in England.

I have been employed as a domiciliary care worker for the best part of seven years now, driving between the homes of people in my community who draw on social care. On singles runs, I visit clients alone, with no colleagues and no direct supervision. Every day, hundreds of thousands of homecare workers are relying on their own initiative to support people, with a written care plan to refer to, and a number to call if really stuck. When starting out, this can be daunting, and it is generally a relief when you’re able to work with more experienced team members. They often have tips to pass on about how best to support the other clients you visit and can genuinely empathise with the emotional and physical demands of the role.

Their practical tips might include things like:

• Getting people to cross their legs before helping them put on a compression stocking
• What order to tackle housework tasks in to make the most of the minutes when your client is busy
• A system to ensure there are no mix-ups when administering multiple medications from separate boxes.

Within every domiciliary care team, there is a wealth of such lived expertise which can vastly improve the confidence of individual team members, making them more likely to stay in the role. When knowledge is shared, this is likely to have positive effects on the quality and continuity of care, too.

Having worked for three domiciliary care agencies in the same geographical area and knowing that there are many more in the patch, it got me thinking about the fact that there is no contact between any of these teams despite the fact we are all doing the same work. There is also a great deal of variation in the amount of contact between staff in the same organisation. At some agencies, there are no channels to communicate with other members of the team.

Imagine if there was a space where, no matter where someone worked, they could connect with other domiciliary care workers for peer support and advice…

Knowing how overstretched the office teams of homecare agencies tend to be, a space like this could do much to ensure workers get the support they need, when they need it.

It was on this basis that I set up Homecare Workers' Group, our support network for domiciliary care workers in England. We offer:

• a secure WhatsApp community
• fortnightly online drop-ins
• a series of in-person meetups around the country which will begin next year, the first of which will be held in Nottingham next month.

Since launching the group just over a year ago, we have brought together over 250 domiciliary care workers from around the country. The connections forged in this time have created a responsive, welcoming and understanding community of best practice, underpinned by a sincere respect for the work we do and for the people we support. We keep our remit of support informal and relational, sign-posting members to ACAS or the unions if they have questions relating to the specifics of their employment.

A natural offshoot of the group has focused on voicing our observations of the social care system to a wider audience. We are often contacted by sector leaders, policy-makers, academic researchers and media representatives who wish to engage domiciliary care workers in their work, and it is good to be able to connect our members up with such opportunities.

Spread the word!

Now that the space exists, it’s time to let more domiciliary care workers know about it. We want to see the managers of the thousands of homecare employers pointing their teams in the direction of Homecare Workers' Group, in the interest of improved quality and continuity of care, and to ensure staff are happy and well-supported.

Find out more about Homecare Workers’ Group by visiting our website.

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