Becoming a Disability Support Worker: What do I Need to Know?
Disability support workers are a vital healthcare workforce that assist people with different types of disabilities in dealing with regular everyday tasks. From the visually and hearing-impaired, to those suffering from mental conditions or brain injury, to children with autism or additional needs, the disability support worker will help people in various disability categories physically and emotionally through their day-to-day lives, offering them hope and a sense of strength and growing independence, despite their disabilities.
Being a disability support worker is often said to be the best job in the world, for the deep sense of fulfillment that workers in this category achieve in contributing to the health and well-being of other human beings. It is, more than most professions, a highly altruistic vocation that requires a lot of patience, empathy, and passion to help those in need.
If you feel that working with people with disability and helping to make a difference in your community are aspirations that would fit your passions, interests and social abilities, then you would benefit from exploring this area of healthcare. There is a long list of support services for disability that you can research into, so that you can zone in on the specific job under disability healthcare that you feel you’d like to work in. You may work through in-home care, community participation programs or disability centres as a disability support worker.
In Australia alone, there is a constant need for healthcare workers in the mental health and disability categories, and the number of job openings are never quite filled adequately. An article from the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) narrated that:
“Jobs in both professions (counselling and social work) are set to boom, according to Department of Employment figures, with work for skilled counsellors predicted to grow by more than 24 per cent and demand for social workers to rise by 22.5 per cent by 2022.”
Becoming a social worker does have its requirements for qualification, such as a diploma from any course in or related to social work. If you are serious about focusing your time and efforts in the disability sector of healthcare, then you will want to attain a diploma in courses such as Certificate IV in Disability, a course among many types of healthcare and community education programs that Education Training and Employment Australia (ETEA) competently offers.
Our programs at ETEA cater to the highest degree of learning experience, providing a fun and conducive environment for optimal learning. Furthermore, we ensure that our standards of teaching meet the Australian healthcare education standards, as a qualified learning institution in Australia. Get to know more about our course offerings to be well on your way to a fulfilling career in the care of persons with disability.
