In a large mental health care organisation such as Together, there are often vacancies available for the frontline staff we call Social-care Workers and Senior Social-care Workers. These challenging but very rewarding posts lie at the heart of our work, offering you the chance to build close working relationships with clients – and support them to change their lives.
Social-care and Senior Social-care Workers work in all our residential services and make up a large proportion of our staff. In our community-support services, Community Support Workers do similar work within clients own homes.
More information
To find out more about these enormously rewarding job roles, look at our standard job descriptions for the posts of Social-care Worker and Senior Social-care Worker. And read Senior Social-care Worker Tracey Norman’s description of a typical ‘shift in the life’ of a Together Senior Social-care Worker (below).
Interested?
If you are interested in applying for a job as a Social-care Worker at Together, check our latest list of vacancies for posts in your area. If there’s nothing available, just bookmark the page or add it to your ‘favourites’ and check again soon because these positions become available frequently.
A shift in the life of a Together Senior Social-care Worker
By Tracey Norman, Acting Deputy Project Manager, Verneuil Avenue care-home, Stowmarket
2.30pm Tuesday. Arrive for work for a sleep-in shift. Feeling quite relaxed, because I had a day off yesterday. Sit in main lounge for a coffee and a chat with residents, Jim, Ian and other staff on duty. All seems well.
Move up to the office for the daily handover of information and list of tasks to do. After the handover do the daily money handover with a colleague.
A letter arrived this morning from someone wanting to know if there were any job vacancies at the service. Read it and jump for joy. We have been short-staffed for a while and it is bliss to think that someone wants to join our team. Ring the Chelmsford regional office and arrange for an application pack to be sent out to her. Then call her to inform her that she will receive an application pack in the post shortly. Don’t want her to think her letter has gone unnoticed.
4.30pm Go down to the main lounge to speak with the resident who is on cooking duty. He tells me he is cooking chilli con carne and doesn’t need any support to do it. He has already started to prepare the meal, so I leave him to it.
5pm Talk to Steven* whose keyworker I am. We both support the same football team so we moan and groan for a while about the latest result. Then he comes to the office to put his next GP appointments into his personal profile, and I enter them in the project diary.
6pm After dinner it’s time for people to take their medication. And, as we have a new Relief Worker who is still receiving her induction, I supervise her while she administers the medication and fills in the relevant forms.
7pm It’s time for the residents’ meeting. These take place on Tuesday nights. Cooking duties and daily tasks are decided, and any other information that people need to be aware of or want to talk about is discussed. On Wednesday afternoons staff meetings are held. Most of the staff team are on shift that day and it’s always good to catch up on everyone’s news and discuss issues to do with supporting our residents.
After the meeting talk through the induction pack with the new Relief Worker and while she carried on reading through it, I check the emails and look on the internet for industrial washing machines! Our washing machine is on its way out, always leaking all over the floor. But, oh dear, according to the prices here it’s going to cost us over £1,500 for a new one. Just hope the Area Manager will OK it – I don’t fancy hand washing!
9pm already! Phone my family to make sure they are all alright and say goodnight to them.
9.15pm Medication time again. That done, I re-label some medication boxes. Then there’s just the ‘handover sheet’ to get ready for tomorrow. Last of all check everything is OK downstairs and turn in for the night. It’s an early start tomorrow – have to be back on shift at 7.30am.
It’s been a good shift: others may be busier, some not so busy. I could spend a shift going out on activities with residents or supporting them to do some shopping. No two shifts are the same, but there’s always something interesting going on.
I have been working for Together for five years now. I enjoy my job and find it rewarding. It’s not all fun and laughter, but it does give me a good feeling when someone remains well and happy and achieves something that they have always wanted to do.
Working for Together has given me the experience I need to continue climbing the career ladder. I started as a Social-care Worker in November 1997. Together offers good training so when a Senior Social-care Worker’s position came vacant three years later, I felt I had the experience and training needed to do a good job. I had a successful interview and was promoted.
Then in March 2003 I was asked to ‘act up’ as Deputy Manager of the service, and again I felt I had had adequate training to do a decent job. So that’s where I am now, busy gaining experience at a managerial level.
* Names have been changed. | 
