Personal Support Worker
Personal Support Worker
Career Overview
Personal support workers provide hands-on care and support to people who need help with everyday activities because of age, disability, illness, injury, or other personal needs. They may assist with personal care, mobility, meals, household tasks, companionship, and maintaining independence. Personal support workers can work with people across the lifespan in homes, hospitals, long-term care, supportive housing, group homes, community programs, and other care settings.
Education
To become a Personal Support Worker, you typically complete a recognized Personal Support Worker (PSW) program at a college or career college. Programs combine classroom learning, practical skills training, and supervised clinical placements. High school → PSW program → practical/clinical training → PSW certificate → Personal Support Worker
Work Environment
Personal support workers may work in clients' homes, assisted-living facilities, long-term-care homes, group homes, community programs, and other healthcare settings. Some work independently or through home-care agencies. The work can involve physical activity, close personal interaction, and evening or weekend shifts.
Future Outlook
The outlook for personal support workers is strong. As populations age and more people choose to receive care at home or in their communities, the need for personal support workers is expected to remain high. Technology such as electronic care records, scheduling platforms, mobile health tools, and remote monitoring is also becoming part of modern home care.
Recommended High School Courses
- Biology
- English
- Physical education
- Health science
- Social science
- Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
- Instructing - Teaching others how to do something.
- Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
- Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
- Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.
- Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
- English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
- Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
- Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
- Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Administer basic health care or medical treatments.
- Document client health or progress.
- Maintain client information or service records.
- Monitor health or behavior of people or animals.
- Develop plans for programs or services.
- Provide counsel, comfort, or encouragement to individuals or families.
- Prepare foods or meals.
- Drive vehicles to transport patrons.
- Perform housekeeping duties.
- Teach health or hygiene practices.
- Assist individuals with special needs.
Schools
Potential Scholarships
Approx Salary Expectation
References
Trend Analysis - Explorer the Market, Labour Market Information, Government of Canada https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/trend-analysis.
O*NET OnLine, National Center for O*NET Development, https://www.onetonline.org/.