Care At Home
After 3 years’ working in partnership with Anglicare I’ve had a lot of wonderful experiences and learnt many lifelong lessons.
I spent the first year working as a Care Worker with Anglicare At Home for two days a week based around the lower north shore. During this time I also had the pleasure of facilitating the Christian Care course within the staff teams, as well as contributing to their blog and videos. I then became a full time Care Team Leader, managing a team of 40 Care Workers for just over a year.
I now work in the Pastoral Care department and have the privilege of making contact via visits or phone calls with our clients, and bringing the Bible and prayer and other profound comforts into their hearts and minds.
I also foster young children through Anglicare with my family. Clearly, I love caring for the very elderly and the very young. Many people outside of the work I’ve done in the past three years have no idea how tremendously exciting it is to experience life alongside these age groups.
I have loved my work within Anglicare. Even when I tripped and broke a bone in my foot when I was in the home of 92-year-old Roberto who had many years ago had a leg amputated. His sympathy was breathtaking. And deeply funny. Even when I would sit for hours with Gladys who has late-stage dementia, holding her hands, singing to her gently, praying with her, and sharing some jokes. None of which she would respond to. Even the days when I wondered if I was making any difference at all. And then the moments would come, like when 96-year-old Bert, sitting quietly in his armchair in his small dark lonely loungeroom, told me I was the light of his week. These are moments when your heart soars and you skip for days.
My mantra over the past few years has been that the more value I bring to my work, the more value I get out of it. I am always looking for the treasures in my day, the rocks that just need a little rubbing to reveal diamonds. However, there are many times that I have been the one who has been surprised, the one who has been taught sound wisdom, the one who has been shown a different perspective. My job, and all the work I’ve done within Anglicare, has been wonderful and the lessons, life-long.
Written by Sally Swan
Pastoral Carer - Mission and Partnerships, Anglicare