What do NHS support workers do?

Thats exactly what it involves, helping with personal care and medication. Depends on the setting exactly what you d be expected to do, looking at an individual job descriptions could help

ohhhh, are there other types of HCA that don't involve providing personal care to people? i.e in other departments in the hospital

the specifics will depend on the service you work in, e.g. if it was more mental health based or working with milder intellectual disabilities there could well be no personal care involved - the personal care will vary too, some service users will have little motor control and you will have to wipe their bum etc whereas for others it is simply being with them and prompting which is a lot easier to cope with

other common tasks would be:
- finance management
- cleaning/cooking
- medication
- taking people to do activities e.g. bowling, out to eat
- taking people to run errands e.g. shopping, banking

ohhhh, are there other types of HCA that don't involve providing personal care to people? i.e in other departments in the hospital

So what are the roots to become a support worker for people with mental health problems?

In terms of experience?

Yeah

Loads and loads of places you can look in to that are tailored for people with brain injuries. Don't know if you're from London or not but there's this organisation that I volunteered at called Attend. It caters for people who have aquired brain injuries, who are out of the hospitals and are now trying to take that last step back in to life. People will all sorts of disabilities are there that stem from their brain injury and the staff there are really supportive (towards the volunteers [in terms of their career ambitions]) too.

I've found a few through a quick search:



It's not so much about how close you can get the experience to what you want to pursue a career in, it's about what you can take from it. With the avenue that you're going down, one of the biggest things you'll need is to be able to communicate with people with brain injuries because it can be so difficult. So you can even look at getting experience in hospices, care homes etc. Remember, in care homes elderly people begin to experience issues with their brain.. and so become a lot harder to communicate with. I'm sure you know where I'm going with this.

Theres always a lot to take away from any experience

Thanks, I will try a bit of experience to see if I like it.