Applying Skills

Support worker duties

The specific responsibilities of a support worker, as referenced from careers.govt.nz, may vary depending on the client's needs. Some common duties and responsibilities may include:

• providing personal care
• assisting with mobility and transferring clients from one place to another
• helping clients with daily activities, such as meal preparation, household tasks, and medication management
• providing emotional support and companionship to clients
• ensuring the safety and well-being of clients at all times
• keeping accurate records of client progress and communicating any concerns or issues to the appropriate parties
• maintaining a clean and safe living environment for clients
• adhering to all health and safety guidelines, policies and procedures, as well as the code of rights

Activity

Click through the following cards to see the key skills and responsibilities of support workers and a short description of each.

Wellbeing outcomes

Overall, support workers can have a significant impact on the wellbeing outcomes of the individuals they support by providing relevant support and facilitating the social connections and requirements for meeting their clients' needs.

The specific role the worker plays can vary, depending on the setting in which they work. It may also vary based on the needs of the individuals they support. However, there are some common responsibilities across all fields:

• Emotional support: Support workers are often a source of emotional support for their clients, providing a listening ear and helping them to cope with difficult emotions.
• Practical support: Support workers may assist with daily living tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and personal care. By helping clients meet their basic needs, support workers can improve their overall wellbeing.
• Social support: Many individuals who require support may be socially isolated, so support workers can help to facilitate social interactions and connections with others.
• Advocacy: Support workers can act as advocates for their clients, helping to ensure that their needs and interests are taken into account in decisions that affect their lives.

Discuss job requirements with supervisor

Gaining clarity from your supervisor is vital for performing your job well. Clear communication and understanding of your tasks are essential for success. Seeking guidance not only improves your performance but also creates a positive work atmosphere. Getting accurate information helps you align with the organisation's goals and handle challenges better. So, staying connected with your supervisor is key for professional growth.

Engaging in discussions about your job requirements with your supervisor holds significant importance for various reasons:

Working as a support worker means carrying out your duties within your boundaries. This means that you only provide support that you have been trained to give and are responsible for. Working within your boundaries may also be called your scope of practice.

Working closely with tangata may cause uncertainty about how far to go when carrying out your job responsibilities. Professional boundaries help us to make sense of this and can be described as the boundary between what is acceptable and unacceptable for a professional both at work and outside work.

Zone of helpfulness

The 'zone of helpfulness' describes the range of care activities that should be carried out by a professional support worker. As a support worker, you need to avoid slipping out of the zone of helpfulness. An under-involved support worker could be disinterested or even neglectful, whereas being over-involved with the client or their whānau can put both the client and the support worker at risk.

Source: NCNZ Guidelines: Professional Boundaries (flippingbook.com)

Tasks that may fall outside the scope of your role can vary and depend on an organisation's policies and procedures. However, they may include:

1. Medical procedures: Performing medical procedures that require specialised training, such as administering injections, changing medical devices, or providing complex wound care.

2. Legal or financial advice: Offering legal or financial advice to clients, as this requires expertise in those fields that disability support workers usually do not possess.

3. Diagnosis or treatment planning: Diagnosing medical conditions or developing treatment plans, which are responsibilities of healthcare professionals like doctors and nurses.

4. Psychotherapy or counselling: Providing in-depth psychotherapy or counselling for mental health issues, as this requires specialised training and qualifications.

5. Complex behavioural interventions: Implementing complex behavioural interventions or therapies without proper training and guidance from experts.

6. Medication Prescription: Prescribing medications or adjusting medication dosages which should be done by licensed medical professionals.

7. Legal advocacy: Representing clients in legal matters or advocating for their legal rights, tasks best handled by legal professionals.

8. Financial management: Making major financial decisions on behalf of clients without proper authorisation and expertise.

9. Maintenance of specialised equipment: Repairing or maintaining specialised medical equipment without the necessary training.

10. Emergency medical care: Providing emergency medical care beyond basic first aid, which should be done by qualified healthcare providers.

Effective communication is key to building positive, supportive relationships with tangata and their whānau.

Communication occurs in physical space, cultural and social values and psychological conditions. Communication happens with and without words.

• the words you're trying to convey only accounts for less than 10%
• the tone of voice or how you say what you say accounts for nearly 40%
• and body language plays the most important role. This accounts for over half of the overall experience, 55% or more

Communication processes

Every time some form of communication occurs, there is a specific process that takes place. We can break this process down into its different parts so that we can see exactly what is happening and identify any problems that can occur. By doing this we can try to eliminate these problems and become better communicators.

The message is encoded, with the code being the language used by the sender. This may refer to the actual language the person is speaking, or it can refer to spoken and written language (verbal) or body-language, facial expression and signals (non-verbal). It can also mean tone of voice.

The recipient then needs to decode the message so they can understand what is being communicated to them. They need to hear the message and then convert it into meaning. Sometimes errors can occur in the process, meaning the correct message is not transmitted.

Warning signs 

These are some warning signs you may notice when a person you are communicating with does not understand you.

• Leaned forward to hear you 
• Asked you to repeat something you had just said 
• Repeated a word (of yours) incorrectly 
• Reacted (especially visibly) to inappropriate slang you used

Your role as a health and wellbeing support worker is to support tangata/clients to achieve autonomy (independence) and self-determination (be in control of their own decisions/life) and foster hope. To do this you will need effective communication skills.

Improve your basic communication skills

Start with the basics of speaking and listening. When speaking:

• Adopt a friendly tone of voice.
• Ensure you speak at a speed and volume that is suited to the tangata.
• Ensure the language you use is clear and professional, but not filled with medical jargon. Remember shorter sentences are easier to process and understand. Simpler words are also easier to understand.
  • This is particularly important if the tangata and their whānau do not have English as their first language.
  • If you cannot explain something in simple terms, you have probably not understood it yourself.
• Learn to seek feedback or clarification to ensure your message has been understood.

Listening is not the same as hearing. It is important to take the time to listen carefully to what people are saying, considering both their verbal and non-verbal communication.

• Using questioning and reflection when communicating demonstrates that you are both listening and interested in what is being said.
• By using questions effectively, you can both check others’ understanding, and also learn more from them.

Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal signals reinforce or contradict the message of our words and are much harder to fake than words. They are therefore a much more reliable signal. Learning to read body language is a vital part of effective communication.

All of these elements can be used on their own or together to create a package of communication that helps the other person to truly understand the message.

Non-verbal communication is only useful when there is a shared understanding of what a gesture or movement means. Sometimes people from different cultural backgrounds have differing expectations of non-verbal communication. They might use gestures more often when they speak, avoid eye contact with groups of people or use facial expressions in particular ways to emphasise a point or express an emotion.

Communication techniques

The techniques described in the presentation below can be useful when communicating with tangata and their whānau.

Use the arrow buttons to move through the presentation and complete the activities on the last two slides.

Giving effective instructions

Having the ability to provide clear and comprehensive instructions is a crucial skill. You may be required to provide instructions both to your client and to members of the interdisciplinary team. You need to ensure that the instructions you provide deliver the information required clearly while providing the level of detail appropriate to the situation. Too much information can be as confusing as too little. Try to include only the important details.

To give instructions effectively, try these useful factors:

Team work

An essential part of your role as a community support worker is to be able to collaborate effectively with other people and organisations to support tangata and their whānau. Working collaboratively means working with others to accomplish a goal or task.

Working well as a team requires building and maintaining relationships and being an active team member. Good team members demonstrate the following behaviours.

• Communicate constructively: when you collaborate with others, your communication needs to be clear, direct, honest, positive and respectful.
• Listen actively: by absorbing, understanding, and thoughtfully considering the ideas and beliefs of others. Part of listening is receiving the information and taking an appropriate time to respond without getting defensive or reacting negatively.
• Be reliable: fulfil your commitments and always do your job to the best of your ability.
• Share information, knowledge, and experience: the willingness to share and pass on important information helps ensure success and prevent surprises.
• Be an active participant: engage in discussions and meetings and take the initiative to support the person, their whānau and your multidisciplinary team.
• Cooperate: look beyond individual differences to focus on what is best for the person being supported and solve problems or issues in positive ways.
• Respect others: be courteous and considerate towards all members of your multidisciplinary team, the person you support, and their whānau.
• Give and receive feedback gracefully.
• Share credit for good ideas with others.
• Acknowledge others' skills, experience, creativity, and contributions.
• Listen to and acknowledge the feelings, concerns, opinions, and ideas of others.

Multi-disciplinary team in healthcare

A multi-disciplinary team is a range of health professionals working together to support the outcomes of a service user.

The MDT can include:

Working collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team that is made up of people with different roles, professions or areas of expertise will help the tangata you support to meet their goals. When working collaboratively, members of a multi-disciplinary team contribute and share their views and perspectives about a person or situation to achieve a common goal and deliver high-quality support.

Following is a list of the important benefits to the tangata you support when working collaboratively to achieve a common goal.

• The care provided addresses the needs of the whole person, not just particular aspects.
• Whānau are kept up-to-date with changes in the person’s condition and can talk openly with care providers.
• Care can be customised to meet the person’s individual needs.
• Whānau can support goals in the care and rehabilitation of the person.
• There is a better understanding between all the people involved in the tangata’s care.

Problem-solving

Problems are an everyday occurrence in life, and the workplace is no different. On any given day, you probably deal with many problems without really thinking about them. However, a problem can sometimes be more difficult to solve; at that point you need to apply a process to determine the best choices and decisions.

Problem-solving is both a process and a skill you can learn. It takes you through a series of steps to help you reach the right decision:

A non-judgmental role

Support in a health and wellbeing setting consists of providing assistance to meet a person’s health and wellbeing needs. It should aim to maintain, improve, or restore a person’s independence and/or interdependence by using the person’s existing strengths and appropriate resources.

A support worker needs to develop and maintain relationships that focus on the intended outcome/s for the client.

It is crucial for support workers to maintain a non-judgmental and client-centred approach, respecting the client's values, beliefs, and preferences and working collaboratively with them to achieve their goals.

Behaving ethically

Ethics are moral principles or values that influence how a person behaves or the way they perform an activity.

All people who work in a health or wellbeing setting are required to work in an ethical and professional way within the codes of practice relevant to their place of work and the type of work that they are doing.

Unethical behaviour in the workplace

People behaving unethically in the workplace fail to follow moral principles. They may also contravene organisational policies and procedures. Examples may include:

• covering up a mistake such as forgetting to give a client medication
• fabricating health records
• giving a client a new medication without disclosing it to them or their whānau
• accepting gifts from a client
• carrying out care tasks that you are not qualified to perform
• passing on confidential information

If you see a co-worker behaving unethically, you need to report it following organisational procedures. This protects you and the client.

Where unethical practice is detected, the organisation will have a range of responses available. This may range from warnings and retraining to loss of employment. 

Ethical dilemmas

Support workers can be faced with a range of ethical issues throughout their practice. The ‘right’ course of action may not always be clear because there can be conflicts between different ethical principles and practices.

Some potential ethical dilemmas a support worker might encounter include issues surrounding:

• confidentiality
• autonomy
• professional boundaries
• conflict of interest
• dual relationships

8-step process for ethical decision-making

Cory, G., Corey, M., Corey, M. and Callanan P. (2015) suggest an 8-step ethical decision-making process.

Click on the headings below to display details about the 8 steps.

The practical tasks that you are required to perform will depend on the needs of tangata you are supporting. This course has described a range of practical tasks which you may have performed. 

• Moving–e.g. helping stand or get out of bed or moving to a wheelchair. This may include the use of slings and other equipment.
• Helping with dressing and undressing.
• Washing, including helping with showering or providing bed baths.
• Oral hygiene, including teeth and denture cleaning.
• Shaving.
• Assisting with eating and drinking.

Activity