So far you have thought about the skills and qualities you have developed as a carer and you have thought about your ideas for the future. You may be at a stage where you’re thinking about taking up or returning to paid employment. Perhaps you have an idea already of what you’d like to do?
This session looks in detail at jobs and careers. Researching jobs within the employment areas that you are interested in will help you plan ahead and make realistic, informed decisions. It can help you find the right path and prevent you having to make too many detours on your journey.
After working through this session you will have:
an understanding of the various skills that could be developed within a caring role, and how some of these are transferable to other contexts
an appreciation of personal qualities developed through a caring role
an idea of the directions carers might like to go in
an idea of what it is possible for carers to achieve in their immediate future
an understanding of the learning options open to carers
an idea, or ideas, about possible learning paths
as a learner, how to go about finding out what you need to know
the ability to use information technology (IT) to carry out reflective activities in writing and communicating
the ability to use the internet to find information useful to you
the ability to explore and use new ways of expressing ideas.
A list of career areas is given in Table 5.1. You can see that this list is very long – so how do you choose?
You might find it helpful in the first instance to look at the decisions taken by other carers in the following four different career areas:
You can read and listen to their circumstances and find out more about the courses they have started, together with the other strategies they have used to gain related knowledge and experience and increase their employability.
You will then be invited to look in more detail at selected career areas outlined in Table 5.1 to explore job profiles and key skills in areas of interest to you.
Naomi
You met Naomi briefly in Session 4. The experience of caring for her daughter has changed Naomi’s ambitions and she has decided she would like to develop a career in social work.
These are the steps Naomi has taken from making that decision to starting to gain experience and qualifications that will lead her towards achieving that goal.
Naomi has started K101 An Introduction to Health & Social Care, which provides an overview of health and social care and an introduction to learning in higher education.
She is also studying KYJ113 Foundations for Social Work Practice – a key introductory level 1 Open University course that develops knowledge of the key roles of social work and introduces the social work standards and codes of practice relevant to each UK nation.
Find out more about routes into the social services by using the links below.
You can browse the skills, interests and qualities you need to work in a range of related roles, including community development worker, learning mentor, social worker, nursery manager or youth and community worker.
For example, as a social worker you will need:
(Source: National Careers Service, 2012b)
Read a social worker’s job description.
The careers website Prospects describes different kinds of jobs in social care and provides details of the qualifications you might need to become a social or youth worker. While this website is aimed at graduates, many of the jobs it describes do not need degree-level qualifications.
The National Careers Services job profiles website can tell you about jobs in the social services sector.
The Scottish careers website Planitplus provides information about the experience of being a social worker in Scotland:
You met Dean earlier in the course.
He’s 28 and cares for his mum, brother and grandad. Dean has decided that he’d like to find ways to develop his career. He knows that the better employment he finds, the better placed he is to support his family and fulfil his caring responsibilities. Combining his paid work and his caring role has been challenging and he has felt unsupported by his employer and trade union, despite being a workplace union representative. In order to progress his career, Dean has decided to reduce his work to four shifts a week so he can combine his employment with his Open University studying and his caring roles. He faces continuing challenges with his own health, but is clear and focused on his long-term aim to work in IT.
Listen to Dean talking about his experience of studying.
These are the steps Dean has taken towards his goal.
Dean has experienced setbacks on the way to taking up his studies in IT, but he has persevered and is enjoying his studies.
He has chosen to study an introductory level 1 module with The Open University, TU100 My Digital Life, which is an introduction to the future of computing and the internet.
Find out more about routes into IT by using the links below.
You can browse the skills, interests and qualities you need to work in different areas of IT, and find out about what you’d need to work as a support technician, an IT manager or a web developer.
For example, as an IT support technician, you will need:
(Source: National Careers Service, 2012a)
Read an IT support technician’s job description.
The careers website Prospects describes different kinds of jobs in IT and provides details of the qualifications you might need to become an IT consultant or a games developer. While this website is aimed at graduates, many of the jobs it describes do not need degree-level qualifications.
The National Careers Services job profiles website can tell you about jobs in information technology and information management.
The Scottish careers website Planitplus provides information about opportunities in the IT sector in Scotland.
Janet
Janet, 42, had not studied since her son was born. While caring for her son over the past 19 years she’s learned a lot through volunteering at his school and also at SenseScotland. Now that her son is becoming an adult she has a little more time to herself and is in a position to consider what paid work she’d like to take on in the future. She is clear that she’d like to work in services for people with disabilities and would like to do further study to get there. Knowing that distance learning is the only practical way forward for her, Janet is studying Health and Social Care with The Open University and fitting that in around her caring and volunteering responsibilities, which can be a tricky juggling act at times.
Janet knows she would like to be a manager of services for people with disabilities. These are the steps she has taken towards achieving her goal.
Like Naomi, Janet is studying K101 An Introduction to Health & Social Care.
Find out more about routes into health and social care by using the links below.
You can browse the skills, interests and qualities you need to work in a range of health related roles, including a nurse, residential care worker or social worker.
For example, to work as health services manager you should have:
Read a health service manager’s job description.
You might be interested in working within the voluntary sector. Browsing the jobs advertised on the Goodmoves website will give you an idea of job descriptions, roles and requirements for working within the health and social care voluntary sector.
The careers website Prospects describes different kinds of jobs in social care and provides details of the qualifications you might need to become a learning disability nurse or a social worker. While this website is aimed mainly at graduates, there are other occupations in these work areas that do not need degree-level qualifications.
The National Careers Services job profiles website can tell you about employment within the social services sector.
The Scottish careers website Planitplus provides information about working as a health services manager.
Katrina
Katrina, 49, is married and has five children, two of whom live at home. One of her sons has autism and attention deficit disorder. As her sons got older Katrina found she had more time for herself and knew she wanted to do something but wasn’t sure what. She took up an Open University access course, which she passed. This gave her the confidence to take a Return to Nursing Practice course at university, something she’d been thinking about for ten years but didn’t think she’d ever manage to do. Two years on, she is working as a support worker in her local mental health unit. Once her nursing registration comes through she plans to apply for a job as a staff nurse.
Listen to Katrina talking about her return to nursing.
These are the steps Katrina took to get back to her nursing career.
Katrina completed Y177 Understanding Society (a former OU access module that has been replaced by the Y032 People, Work and Society access course) and a reflection course. These gave her the confidence to do a Return to Nursing Practice course and she’s now planning to return to work as a staff nurse.
Find out more about routes into healthcare by using the links below.
You can browse the skills, abilities and qualities you need to work in different areas of healthcare and nursing, including what you would need to work as an adult nurse, a healthcare assistant or a practice nurse.
For example, as a healthcare assistant you would need to have:
Read an adult nurse’s job description.
The careers website Prospects describes different kinds of jobs in healthcare and provides details of the qualifications you might need to become a mental health nurse. While this website is aimed at graduates, many of the jobs it describes do not need degree-level qualifications.
The National Careers Services job profiles website can tell you about jobs in medicine and nursing.
The Scottish careers website Planitplus provides information about working in nursing and other healthcare roles.
Now it’s time to think about yourself.
If your main aim in completing this course is to help you decide on a future career or a career change, you may want to spend more time on this activity to fully explore your ideas. This will help ensure that you make a realistic, well-informed decision.
IT skills can help you research or explore your ideas and are useful skills in their own right.
Go to Activity 5.1 in your Reflection Log. Once you have completed the activity, make sure you save the document again.
Explore the information given for two job profiles, so that you are able to respond to the following questions:
Make a note of any point that particularly interests or surprises you.
You can complete this activity on your own or in pairs if you are in a group. Remember to save your answers because you will return to these in future activities.
You can use your notebook to record what you’ve found out or use this table but remember to save the document.
How did you get on? Were you able to answer the questions? Did any of the information surprise you?
If you completed this activity in pairs or a group environment, you may want to discuss your answers. The information that you have just researched will help you with the next activity in this session.
Planning a career takes time!
If you are thinking of a new career, or perhaps wondering where further study and qualifications might lead you, you may want to do some further research of other resources before identifying your goals for the future. Further information and advice is available from the National Careers Service, Skills Development Scotland or The Open University’s Careers Advisory Service.
National Careers Service (2012a) Job profiles: everything you need to know about jobs… [Online]. Available at https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/ advice/ planning/ jobfamily/ Pages/ default.aspx (Accessed 24 June 2014).
National Careers Service (2012b) Job profiles: social worker [Online]. Available at https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/ advice/ planning/ jobprofiles/ Pages/ socialworker.aspx (Accessed 24 June 2014).
This course was written by Lindsay Hewitt, Sarah Burton and Julie Robson.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.
The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit:
Figure 5.1: © fotosearch.com
Figure 5.2: © Muharrem oner/istockphoto.com
Figure 5.3: © The Open University/Library image (model image only)
Figure 5.4: © The Open University/Library image (model image only)
Figure 5.5: © Logorilla/iStockphoto.com
Table 5.1: Extract from https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/
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