How to Become a Caregiver: All You Need to Know
Caregivers work in the home and help their clients with daily activities, such as bathing and bathroom functions, feeding, grooming, taking medication, and some housework. Caregivers help clients make and keep appointments with doctors, provide or arrange transportation and serve as a companion for their clients. Most caregivers have at least a high school diploma when starting their career, but it is not required. Much training is done on the job by nurses or other caregivers. The training includes safety information, emergency response, cooking special dietary foods if necessary.
7 Steps to becoming caregivers
At present, we know that to become a caregiver requires knowledge and skills, but how to acquire these abilities and improve their comprehensive quality to achieve the goal of becoming an excellent caregiver. Next, we will tell you through detailed steps.
Step 1: Understand caregiver description and responsibilities
Caregivers assist individuals who have difficulty performing basic day-to-day activities, for example, the elderly, disabled persons, or people suffering from chronic or mental disorders. A Caregiver's duties include assisting with personal care, administering medication, and providing companionship. They work in their clients' homes or in special care facilities.
Caregiver Responsibilities:
- Assisting with personal care, which may include bathroom functions, bathing, grooming, dressing, and eating.
- Following a prescribed health-care plan, this may include assisting with exercise and administering medication.
- Ensuring the client's home is organized according to their needs and that safety measures are in place. You may also be expected to assist with some light housework.
- Providing emotional support and encouragement to perform necessary tasks.
- Providing mobility assistance may be required, for example helping the client in and out of bed, a chair, or a wheelchair.
- Transporting or escorting the client to medical and other appointments.
- Monitoring and reporting changes in health, behavior, and needs.
Step 2: Think before you do: whether is it worth to be a caregiver
The influence of every profession is double-sided. As a caregiver, it may bring you some achievements and benefits, but it also has some professional disadvantages. So before we make sure that we want to be a caregiver, we think you should have a detailed understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of caregivers.
Pros of becoming a caregiver:
1. The biggest advantage to hiring a professional caregiving agency is that it assumes liability, which is a critical consideration in a society prone to lawsuits.
2. One major advantage of hiring caregiver support directly is having more control over selection of an individual who has the right chemistry with your loved one. Agencies can send different caregivers at different times, but agencies also provide 24/7 backup if the regular caregiver is unable to show up something an independent caregiver usually cannot guarantee.
Cons of becoming a caregiver:
1. Your life's plans and schedules may be interrupted or even forever changed. But to be fair, there are plenty of events in life that can result in a change of plans such as a job change or illness, etc.
2. Care giving can be mentally stressful and physically demanding.
3. Caregivers can "burnout" and develop their own health issues if they don't have help or don't make the effort to take care of themselves.
Step 3: Research Best colleges and universities for caregiver
1. University of Pennsylvania
2. University of Toronto
3. Johns Hopkins University
4. The University of Manchester
5. King's College London
6. Yale University
7. University of Technology Sydney
8. University of Washington
9. University of Southampton
10. National University of Singapore (NUS)
11. Karolinska Institutet
12. University of Michigan
13. University of California, San Francisco
14. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
15. The University of Sydney
16. University of Pittsburgh
17. University of Alberta
18. Monash University
19. McMaster University
20. Duke University
Step 4: Go through College
Systematic learning in university is the basis of becoming a qualified senior caregiver. Most caregivers complete a minimum of seven years' training at the university level. Before applying to a medical school, all doctors must complete a bachelor's degree in a related field. Most often, aspiring caregivers and doctors complete a pre-medical degree as an undergraduate. Other acceptable undergraduate degrees for caregivers include most science degrees or a child psychology degree. Medical school typically takes an additional four years after completing an undergraduate degree. At the same time, with the help of teachers, you can constantly improve your comprehensive ability and make yourself more suitable for the future caregivers. Overall studying at university is very critical to become a professional caregiver. You can learn all kinds of related knowledge systematically at college and lay a solid foundation for your future career.
Step 5: Internship Opportunity
caregivers typically need a bachelor's degree, a degree from a medical school, which takes 4 years to complete, and, 3 to 7 years in internship and residency programs. The university can not only provide you with the opportunity to study the theoretical knowledge systematically, but also make use of your spare time to find part-time jobs during the university period, so as to obtain real work experience while studying, which is very valuable for you, and it will definitely be helpful for your real career in the future. You can search for relevant part-time caregiver interns through some special part-time websites, send your resume to companies that need part-time students, and you can also learn about relevant part-time information through the employment service center of the school.
Step 6: Prepare relevant skills for caregiver
1. Attention to Detail: Some clients have specific rules or schedules that must be minded, or specific rules that must be followed.
2. Interpersonal Skills: Caregivers work in a very personal way with their clients. Some will be in pain or very sensitive to their fragility. Caregivers must be sensitive and compassionate with clients.
3. Stamina: Caregivers might need to lift clients into the bathtub, cars and into bed, and need strength.
4. Time Management: Caregivers are schedule keepers. Caregivers have to be there to make sure clients get up on time, make sure medication is taken on schedule and clients get to appointments on time.
Step7: find relevant caregiver jobs, and apply it
When you finish your studies, it's your goal to find a suitable job, so where can you find relevant jobs? Now we provide you with a website where you can research for the job you want, you can click it: https://jobs.salary.com/.
Important Tools for a caregiver
Sufficient knowledge and ability is the key to become a caregiver. They can help you develop various career paths and obtain a high salary.
Develop your career path
With the aging of the baby boomers, caregiver jobs will grow rapidly. According to the BLS, caregiver jobs will grow 69% by 2020, much faster than the average job. A Caregiver with a high school diploma typically earns between $8.50 and $14.00 per hour with a median hourly wage of $11.00. Other factors such as company size and industry play a role in determining an individual's pay. There are a number of environments that a caregiver may work within. Caregivers are either hired by a client or their family, or report directly to a physician or a nurse. The typical next step in a caregiver's career path is to become a Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA) which enables caregivers to work outside of the home and venture into medical facilities. It also comes with a pay increase and steadier hours depending on where they work.
What does a Caregiver do?
Caregivers, also known as home health or personal care aides, give assistance to people who are sick, injured, mentally or physically disabled, or the elderly and fragile.
Typical duties of a caregiver might include taking care of someone who has a chronic illness or disease; managing medications or talking to doctors and nurses on someone's behalf; helping to bathe or dress someone who is frail or disabled; or taking care of household chores, meals, or processess both formal and informal documentation related to health for someone who cannot do these things alone.
The demands on a caregiver's body, mind, and emotions can easily seem overwhelming, leading to fatigue and hopelessness -- and, ultimately, burnout.
Caregivers are either hired by a client or their family, or report directly to a physician or a nurse.
With an increasingly aging population in all developed societies, the role of caregiver has been increasingly recognized as an important one, both functionally and economically.
What skills do you need to be a Caregiver?
If you are interested in building an honorable career in this industry, you will need a good Caregiver Resume that gains the trust of a prospective employer. For prospective employers and providers of health care, hiring the ideal Caregiver goes beyond possessing the ideal technical skills and fundamental knowledge about the job.
To become an effective Caregiver you must not only possess the requisite technical, fundamental and medical skills.
All caregivers must demonstrate a compassionate heart and a verifiable, consistent history of dependability at work.
There are plenty of great online training programs for caregivers, including IPCed and CareAcademy.
Almost all caregivers have experienced anxiety or irritability stemming from their roles, and they say it's a very demanding job.