How to find a community support worker or become one

Support worker and client throwing clay on a potter's wheel together.

What is a community support worker?

A community support worker is a person who works with an older Australian or person living with disability, and services a range of needs that allow their client to live more comfortably and with greater ease. In-home care can include basic housekeeping duties, helping the client shower and dress, preparing simple meals and even providing companionship.

Outside of the home, a community support worker can transport the client to appointments and social engagements, keep them engaged with their community, or take them out for lunch or a movie.

Community support workers generally don’t have to have formal qualifications but instead, focus on delivering everyday living support, along with kindness, compassion and warmth.

How much does it cost to hire a community support worker?

The cost varies according to whether the client is using aged care funding or an NDIS plan (for Disability Care). Government funding covers the cost of hiring a community support worker to whatever extent has been assessed as appropriate for the client’s needs.

Community support workers on Mable are independent contractors. That means the out-of-pocket cost may vary depending on the rate that clients agree on with the support worker. When hiring a community support worker via the Mable platform, clients can discuss and even negotiate the hourly rate with them.

Connecting clients and community support workers

Mable makes it easy for clients to search, connect with and book independent support workers meeting their criteria. Clients can filter their search for age, gender, experience, languages spoken and more. Clients can also post a job with their specific requirements, and only relevant support workers will receive an alert. Booking on Mable provides safeguards and protections, including a high-level suite of insurances.

What is involved in becoming a community support worker?

What’s mainly involved in becoming a community support worker is a desire to provide meaningful support to clients in the community who need help going about their regular daily activities. To become a support worker on Mable, you first must create an account. You will need an ABN, an NDIS Worker Screening Check, two references, and if you’re working with children, a working with children check, to be approved and start accepting jobs.

Police checks have been replaced by the NDIS Worker Screening Check. This is a mandatory requirement for all support workers on Mable. New support workers signing up to Mable require an NDIS Worker Screening Check. Existing Mable support workers may use their existing checks until they are expired, at which time they must provide an NDIS Worker Screening Check.

Physiotherapist working with a Mable client in the garden.

Can anyone become a community support worker?

Community support workers are not always highly experienced and don’t necessarily have tertiary qualifications. The most important prerequisite is to be a kind, caring individual who wants to help make clients’ lives easier, more comfortable and more enjoyable.

For someone who wants to be a community support worker, enlisting with a platform such as Mable helps them to find and communicate with clients. It’s simply a matter of signing up, filling out a questionnaire, providing references and relevant security checks such as an NDIS Worker Screening and Working With Children Check, if relevant, and waiting to become approved.

Community support workers find the work very fulfilling, knowing that they are providing a genuine, much-needed service for their clients. For some clients, their community support worker provides the only human interaction they receive in their day-to-day life. It can make quite a difference, to have someone to have a chat and a few laughs with and keep the ordinary things most of us take for granted in order.

What are the tasks completed by a community support worker?

A client will usually have a good idea of what they need. For some, companionship alone is a huge benefit to their lives. It could also entail some help around the home, such as gardening, cooking or cleaning.

As someone who self-manages a Support at Home Package, Mable means that we can employ the right people to do the right job for us! It puts the control back in our hands and means that the money that we are allocated for care goes further.

Sharyn

Mable is a great solution to finding home-based help for your elderly parent/parents...Our Mable carer writes notes at the end of each visit and is willing to take on extra days of care when I am away. Having the same person whom my mother trusts is a godsend...it's the way to go if you don't want a truckload of different people turning up to help at inflexible times and whose services are limited to fixed tasks.

Meredith

Mable has made managing support for my parents so much easier and allowed them to have control of the process. The workers are well vetted, and the platform is safe to use for both parties.

Anne

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A young person and a disability support worker are looking at themselves in the mirror and smiling while applying make-up.