Personal Care Worker

To work as a Personal Care Worker in a Residential Aged Care Home with Benetas, you will need a Certificate III in Individual Support or similar.

Similar qualifications include:

-          Certificate IV in Individual Support

-          Certificate IV in Disability Services

-          Certificate IV in Ageing Support

If you are studying Nursing and have completed 8 units, and your first year placement, you can work as a Personal Care Worker.

If you do not have a qualification, but would like to start working in aged care, you may be able to work as an In Home Service Assistant / Home Care Worker working within a client’s home. 

Qualifications

A Certificate III in Individual Support or Ageing Support is a great start. 

The Government is offering free TAFE certificates in Individual Support / Ageing Support. You can find more information here or https://www.vic.gov.au/free-tafe.

Learning more about aged care

Free online short courses are also available through government funded universities, on topics such as Person Centred Care, The Aged Care Quality Standards, and the Australian Aged Care System. More information can be found here through Equip Learning at https://equiplearning.utas.edu.au/ 

Learn while your work

Traineeships are a great way to learn and study, while working in the role. 

If you are studying, you will need to undertake placement hours at the end of your course with an aged care company, giving you hands on experience before you graduate. 

If you are currently studying nursing, you can also work as a Care Worker while you study.

If you do not have a qualification you can work as a Home Care Worker without having a current qualification, or without studying. 

Residential Aged Care Home

Our Residential Aged Care Homes are facilities that provide 24/7 care and nursing assistance to older Victorians that live there. Some homes have 40 residents living within the home, to larger homes with over 100 residents. Each resident has their own room, and some of our homes have ‘apartments’ with separate living areas and meals facilities within.

Staff in our residential aged care homes work in shifts (morning shift; afternoon shift; night shift), across the 7 days of the week. Staff work together, and there are Personal Care Workers, Enrolled Nurses, and Registered Nurses all on the different shifts.

You will work at the one location for your shift.  

Our Residential Aged Care Homes are also referred to as Nursing Homes, Ageing Homes, or Aged Care Homes.

Community, Health and Care

Our Community, Health and Care service works across Victoria to provide care and support to older Victorians within their homes.

You will travel between client’s homes in the community, and may see 2-4 clients per day depending on the need and distance.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Worker Screening Check (NDIS Check) is a way to ensure that people who work with NDIS participants do not present an unacceptable risk to participants.

NDIS Check information:

·       The check is a requirement by the Victorian Government and is processed and assessed by Service Victoria. The assessment can take from 3 weeks to 3 months to obtain a check result

·       The check costs approximately $130 and lasts for 5 years

·       You can use this check with any employer

·       You can apply for the check and find out more information about it here.

At Benetas, you cannot start work in a Residential Aged Care Home without a clear check outcome.

Work life balance

Being a Personal Care Worker in a residential Aged Care Home provides great work life balance. You can choose from a variety of shifts including morning, afternoon, or overnight. As the home operates 24/7, you can also choose what days of the week you’re able to work from Monday to Sunday.

Learning Opportunities

During your shift, you’ll be working with other experienced Care Workers, as well as Enrolled Nurses and Registered Nurses. On  ‘day shifts’ from Monday to Friday, there will also be specialist clinical roles, and leaders such as Clinical Services Managers and Residential Care Managers.

Working with a team

In our care homes, you will work with other staff, and will have no more than 7 residents to look after, with an easy call system to allo you to receive more support from others. 

Development Opportunities

Many of our Care Workers go on to become Enrolled Nurses and Registered Nurses, but can also move into Customer Service or Administrative roles, or become Lifestyle Assistants. We have many opportunities in our Support Office such as Sales, Learning, and Recruitment that would benefit from firsthand experience as a front line worker.

Being a multi-service organisation, you could also move into our Community, Health and Care Area, working as an In Home Service Assistant to provide one on one care in client’s homes in the community, as a rostering coordinator, or into a Respite Home or Retirement Village.

At Benetas, we will support you to move with internal employment opportunities advertised internally only, new shift patterns offered to our internal staff first, and programs such as our Annual Scholarship program to financially support your studies, along with paid study leave.

Be recognised and rewarded

At Benetas we celebrate our staff and recognise their value. We regularly celebrate within the smaller teams and residential homes, but also across the organisation for Nursing Day, Aged Care Week, Volunteer Week, and for our bi-annual Employee Gala to name a few.

You will work under an Enterprise Agreement with confirmed pay rates, and commitment to annual page increases, in addition to paid leave and shift penalties.

As a not for profit organisation, we are able to offer a higher amount of Salary Packaging through our provider, Smart Salary. Put simply, salary packaging means you can reduce the amount of tax that you have to pay, giving you more money in your pocket.

A Personal Care Worker can go by many names, but they all mean the same thing. Personal Care Worker is used more in Aged Care, and Support Worker is used more in Disability Services.

• Care reflects providing services to someone to enable them to particpate in daily living activities
• Support is about empowering them to be more independent and live a fuller life with integrated strategies in place 

Personal Care Workers assist clients with the activities of daily living including communicating, eating, showering, dressing, toileting and grooming. Other duties can include monitoring medications, making beds, tidying rooms, and cleaning tasks. Personal Care Workers working in Aged Care are responsible for writing progress notes.

Other names for a Personal Care Worker (PCW) include:

• Personal Care Assistant (PCA)
• Personal Carer
• Care Companion
• Home Carer
• Home Care Assistant
• In Home Service Assistant
• Assistant in Nursing (AIN)