Social care is a widely-known term throughout the UK, but sometimes it can be less clear what is incorporated within the phrase. Today, let’s take a look at the different areas of social care so you can know with confidence exactly what social care jobs entail.
Social care involves social work, personal care, protection and social support. Social care is for both children and adults who are at risk to some degree or another. Often, the function of social care is to help fulfill a need that someone has problems fulfilling by themselves. These needs can arise due to illness (short term or long term, within which an individual can no longer perform tasks they were able to before the illness), disability (both mental and physical), or poverty (such as not having the financial means to fulfill certain needs). Similarly, old age can also demand a need for social and home care professionals as daily tasks might become harder or impossible to perform.
Social care has many aims. Firstly, to protect people from abuse and neglect. This is largely what social care around children is concerned with. Yet nowadays, as our aging population increases, the neglect of the elderly has become a serious concern throughout the UK. Eradicating this has become a clear aim of social care in the UK because of which a lot of care home facilities such as Rivendell Care (you could know more about them on https://www.rivendellcare.co.uk) are opening up for the senior citizens. Secondly, to not allow the deterioration and/or promote physical or mental health within a patient. This sort of aim shows the long-term side of social care, as it will often be the case that there are not quick ways of reaching this sort of goal, and no ‘one-size fits all’ approach. Unsurprisingly, the social aspect of social care is also key, in the sense that it needs to promote independence and social inclusion. As it is often the case those who are vulnerable and more dependent than other members of society can feel the most alienated from society too. There are many different approaches to this problem, with each case having its own unique solution.
Unfortunately, social care is woefully underfunded in the UK, so whilst demand grows rapidly as the population ages and poverty increases, funding has dropped in real terms under successive governments. This has led to a system on its knees, with care professionals leaving the industry in their droves to escape the immense pressures placed on them. One care professional is expected to cover huge numbers of people for very little money, so it’s no wonder the system is buckling. Other countries, like Australia, have much better systems in place, with many care providers using shift management software to improve home care agency communication and collaboration, giving professionals the ability to manage their time and divide tasks effectively. This is useful because some care professionals specialise more in some areas than others, so they can do the jobs they’re best at.
Given the variety within social care, it is no surprise that the job roles within social care differ massively. Usually social care roles are defined by the service users you are aiding. Such as child social care, working with the physically disabled, and helping the elderly. In short, different areas of social care demand different types of specialisation, qualifications and mindsets. If social care sounds like a career you could be interested in, then Sanctuary social care has many job opportunities across all of these different areas of social care, throughout the UK.
