The role of a personal support worker can be challenging. Responsible for providing various forms of support and care to seniors, as well as clients who are ill or have a disability, these professionals must ensure the happiness and wellbeing of those they work with while performing a number of other duties. Personal support workers often work in long-term care facilities, palliative care, clients’ homes or similar environments–where their work is essential in keeping residents healthy and their needs accommodated for.
If you’re considering training to become a personal support worker, it’s important to understand the difficulties that often accompany this kind of work. As a personal support worker, having a sense of humour can help you to better navigate the obstacles that come with the job–while making your clients happier and improving your relationships with them. Below, discover more about why having a sense of humour is so important in personal support work.
Humour Makes the Challenges of Personal Support Work Easier
If you have a sense of humour and enjoy caring for others, you’re likely to succeed in personal support worker training. Personal support work can be a challenging field. For many clients, ageing can bring upon feelings of frustration and loss, due to factors such as health issues, reduced mobility, the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s or dementia, financial trouble or even the death of a family member. As a personal support worker, you may encounter situations in which clients express frustration over small things or have difficulty remembering something. A sense of humour–combined with your incredible compassion–will help you see that these expressions are often connected to deeper feelings that have nothing to do with you. A client who is upset about the lunch menu, for example, might simply be processing their feelings about their loss of autonomy, or their inability to cook their own meals. In challenging situations, having a sense of humour will help to alleviate the stress of a conflict, in addition to reducing the emotional toll the situation causes you.
Humour Is Important for the Health of Clients
You’ve probably heard the phrase “laughter is the best medicine.” In fact, laughter has been shown to have many health benefits, many of which are especially important for individuals who are ageing or have disabilities. According to the studies of Lee S. Berk, DrPhd, laughter has the ability to boost endorphins and serotonin, while lowering cortisol. This means that laughter has the ability to reduce pain and alleviate depressive thoughts, while reducing stress which might increase one’s risk of disease or blood pressure. For those who may be living in long-term care homes, isolated from their loved ones or dealing with chronic illness, laughter is an important part of coping with feelings of sadness and loss, and a key part of leading a happier life. If you have the capability to make others laugh, you’ll be great at enriching the lives of those you work with after personal support worker courses.
Build Better Relationships with Clients After Personal Support Worker Training
When it comes to personal support work, the quality of your relationships with the clients you care for is one of the most important aspects of your job. When you and your client can share a joke or a laugh, it’s likely that you’ll be able to form a closer, more beneficial relationship. For example, if you’re helping a senior client with a personal hygiene-related task, being able to laugh together about a potentially embarrassing moment will improve your relationship rather than hinder it. When you have good relationships with your clients, you’ll be able to provide a higher level of care, enhancing your clients’ quality of life, improving your success and leading to a more rewarding career. If you’re ready to help someone else laugh and feel supported and cared for, becoming a personal support worker might be right for you.
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