4 Disability Support Worker Skills You Need to Make a Difference

Many people choose to pursue disability support work as a career because they hold an innate ability to empathise, care for, and help others. Often people want to enter the field because they have a friend or family member with a disability.

They understand the experiences people have in the sector – both positive and negative – and want to make a positive contribution to the lives of people with disabilities.

Disability support workers provide direct care to clients, often in their own homes, to support them with a range of daily living tasks, improving their independence and quality of life. The precise duties will depend on the wants and needs of the individual client. You may also work as part of a team responsible for the client’s care.

If you’re thinking about becoming a disability support worker, chances are you already have a lot of the necessary skills and traits to thrive in it. Skills such as:

• Empathy
• Facilitation
• Communication
• Adaptability

Breanne Drummond, Disability Support Worker at Coastal Residential Service in Burnie, Tasmania, shares her insights into how these skills come into play on the job, and why they’re critical.

As a disability support worker, you will be working with clients who have a range of communication styles, levels of mobility or use of mobility aids, symptoms, and sensitivities that are different to yours. Empathy is the ability to understand what life is like for your clients, and to ensure that clients’ needs are met and that they feel supported.

One way to build on this skill is through an awareness of different models of disability and how they may relate to your future clients’ lives. The medical model of disability holds that disability results from people’s specific conditions and symptoms. For example, if someone has had their leg amputated, they’re disabled because their condition means they can’t walk.

So, someone who has had their leg amputated may experience disability because there are no wheelchair ramps on the buildings they need to use.

The social model may help you and your clients identify where they face external barriers to doing the things they want to do in life. Things like installing access ramps, signage in braille, closed captions, and quiet rooms can make events and spaces more inclusive.

Facilitation may involve:

• Installing access equipment in clients’ homes so that they are able to do more things independently.
• Facilitating a client’s social activities by driving them to different places.
• Helping them articulate their needs during outings, to friends and family members, or to service providers such as disability employment service providers (DES providers).

The medical model can be useful in situations where different treatment options such as medications or therapies may relieve clients’ symptoms or discomfort. Here, facilitation in disability support services would involve liaising with other members of your client’s care team, such as medical doctors, allied health professionals, or other support people to help make daily tasks more manageable for clients.

Disability support workers need excellent communication skills to build rapport with clients. An important aspect of being a carer is building that relationship and acting as a friend or confidante to the client. Home support can be intimate and may involve helping people with their personal hygiene or mental health. It’s important that you have your client’s consent and trust.

Different clients will communicate in different ways. Some may not communicate verbally or may have impaired verbal communication. Some may be deaf or hard of hearing.

Your approach to each client needs to be tailored to suit them and will vary depending on their personality, age, interests, and disabilities. You’ll need to listen carefully, communicate clearly, and with empathy to get a sense of what approach will work. You’ll also need to be willing to change your approach as you get feedback from your client.

Adaptability can involve creativity. Since individual needs are idiosyncratic, you might need to try a few different ideas to see what works for them. For example, if a client doesn’t enjoy their exercises, you could help them brainstorm ways it could be more fun such as by incorporating music they like, or by going outdoors.

Adaptability involves constructively accepting the situation you find yourself in and thinking about it flexibly with creative problem-solving.

Chances are, if you’re considering a career in disability support work, you’ll already be:

• Empathetic
• Committed to facilitating people’s independent choices
• A good communicator who is sensitive to different communication styles and needs
• Adaptable

There are many full-time and part-time employment opportunities promising a good work-life balance for people who are passionate and care about the disability sector. Other technical skills and soft skills include:

Many of the skills and traits required to make a real difference as a disability support worker are innate.

The industry is desperately seeking people with your passion and qualities.

Take the next step in your journey. Discover qualifications that will give you more capability to help others.