Many elderly people choose to stay at home and receive their care directly on a one-on-one, personal basis – this is called Home and Community Care, or HACC for short. For you as a Professional Carer, it involves going to your client’s residence to provide personal care directly to them.
While HACC is not for everyone, it’s a very rewarding career that puts your skills as a Professional Carer to the forefront. Those who are wanting to build strong rapport with their clients and experience a varied work life will find HACC very appealing.
Here are some of the key benefits of HACC that we’ve highlighted, so that you can get a clearer idea if this area of Aged Care is right for you.
Consumer Directed Care coming into play
With the recent launch of Consumer Directed Care, the elderly now have more say in how their care is delivered, which is a positive thing for all parties in HACC. The client base will be more educated, empowered and in-tune with what they are receiving, meaning they will have a clear understanding of what they want.
For you as the Carer it means that instead of working within a grey area, without a solid plan in place, you’ll now be able to focus on the very thing that you entered Aged Care for, which is delivering quality person-centred care to your clients.
Building a strong rapport with your clients
In HACC, you are the only person who is delivering care to that client at the time, and often the services that they require will be ongoing. This allows you to build up a rich portfolio of different clients who you will be very familiar with.
The one-on-one nature of HACC also allows you to build rapport with your clients as you get to know them, and assist them with achieving their goals in life. This is an extremely rewarding experience as you will be front-and-centre in that process, assisting someone that you’ll have a strong professional relationship with.
Flexible and diverse
Home and Community Care is very flexible and diverse in terms of the work that you do. As we indicated earlier with consumer directed care, the client sets the goals in terms of the care that they receive meaning you will be doing a large variety of different, rewarding tasks when you’re on the job.
For one client they may simply require regular personal care, such as showering, meal preparation and other ADLs. Another client might want to go grocery shopping and require your assistance with it. All of these things could happen within a single shift as you tend to different clients. It’s all about delivering person-centred care and that’s what gives HACC such a varied work experience.
Challenging and rewarding
Within a HACC setting you are expected to be self-directed and to use your own initiative and problem solving skills in the delivery of your care. This becomes a very rewarding and empowering experience for yourself, as a Carer, as you find your feet and learn to overcome challenges using the knowledge, skills and training you have received. HACC well and truly requires all aspects of your training to be put into practice. Through these challenges you will be able to develop a style of person-centred care that is unique to you.
So there it is – the key benefits of Home and Community Care! We hope that you managed to pick up a few things from this, and have a clearer understanding of this area of Aged Care.