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Do you need personal care skills to function well in your job role? This article provides a guide on how you can develop the skills and include them on your resume.

 

What Are Personal Care Skills?

Personal care can be defined as making available services and care for recipients and clients who require some help in carrying out day-to-day activities. These activities comprise acts such as dressing, brushing, eating, bathing, toileting, getting into or out of bed, walking, and ensuring that the recipient takes the needful medications among others.

People who most times need personal care are limited by advanced age, young age, and mental retardation among others. The caregiver is saddled with the responsibility of care, guidance, and supervision. Personal skills include a variety of soft skills such as:

• Physical Assistance: In performing physical assistance, the caregiver ensures that his or her client receives adequate care, comfort, and safety. And so, individuals must look out for a care provider who provides a safe environment and is comfortable for loved ones.
• Cleanliness and Hygiene: It is quite easy for individuals who receive personal care to get infected with a virus or bacteria which may lead to them being hospitalized. Therefore, Caregivers need to observe and maintain a high level of cleanliness and hygiene. This could be done through regular cleaning and sanitizing of hands and body parts that go into close contact with recipients.
• Sensitivity, Awareness, and Knowledge: A care provider must observe and notice any changes in the body of his or her client. These changes range from behavior to wellness to coordination and even emotions. A knowledgeable and sensitive Care Provider is most times aware and detects any subtle change that may have some negative adverse effects or repercussions on his or her client.
• Communication and Compassion: The possession and expression of both intra and interpersonal skills is one useful quality of an exceptional personal caregiver. For instance, so many people find it uncomfortable to be led to ease themselves, but a Caregiver who is a good Communicator with great compassion will make matters easier. More so, a good Communicator will ensure that the family of his or her client is on the same page with the goal with him or her through wholesome communication.

 

Importance of Personal Care Skills

Personal Care Skills are important for different reasons. In general, the skill to care for an individual effectively is very much essential for the total well-being of such a recipient. Below are some concise reasons why personal care skills are so important:

• Personal Care aids in ensuring that the health and well-being of a recipient are in a good state: Adequate and proper hygiene alongside personal care helps to minimize the risk of contracting infection and diseases. It also helps prevent already existing illnesses from getting worse in a recipient.
• Personal Care helps to build trust: Trust is an essential attribute of every relationship. The relationship, interactions, and companionship of personal caregivers create the recipient( whether young or old) to find and have a trustworthy confidant through which they can express their thoughts, concerns, and feelings. This would further help the personal caregiver to know the exact areas he or she needs to provide services.
• Personal Care also provides comfort:  Personal care ensures that one’s loved one stays in an environment in which they are comfortable and familiar. Recipients and Clients are opportune to sit in their chairs, lie down on their beds, and make use of their bathroom among other daily activities.  This will further aid such elderly clients who might be suffering from progressive conditions such as dementia.
• Personal Care creates room for one on one attention: Personal Care makes it possible for one’s loved one to be the main focus of the Personal Care Giver. The nature of personal care creates an avenue where the needs of the recipient are met much faster than in a public facility.
• Personal Care ensures faster recovery: It has been proven by research that recipients recover faster from surgery and illness in the comfort of their homes. Furthermore, the risk of developing an infection by recipients in the hospital is reduced to the lowest as they are being catered for in the home by Personal Caregivers.
• Personal Care creates an atmosphere for peace of mind: With the involvement and presence of a Personal Caregiver, a loved one won’t be worried about whether their elderly or sick loved one will fall or get injured as they won’t be alone. This would create some sense of calmness within the mind.

 

How To Improve Your Personal Care Skill.

Improving your personal care skills can help you create an efficient and effective service that would help you reach your target recipient more adequately. Here are ways to improve your care skills:

• Understanding your Clients and Recipients: Knowing and understanding your Clients and Recipients is essential for delivering a personal care service that is designed to meet their needs and preferences. You can however know and understand your clients and recipients through keen observations and wholesome interactions.
• Endeavor to observe and practice good hygiene: Ensure to observe and practice good hygiene because good hygiene helps reduce the risk of contracting diseases and illnesses. Hence, the need to always make use of disinfectants and sanitizers to wash hands and sanitize up areas that come in contact with recipients and clients.
• Paying keen attention to and grooming your communication skills: Communication is very vital when handling patients, clients, their families, and colleagues. One must learn to unlearn negative communication skills and relearn positive communication skills that would enhance the practice of personal care. A personal caregiver must improve his or herself in the aspect of communication by being a good listener. The ability to listen carefully to the worries of patients and clients will give ample conditions to act appropriately.
• Observing and ensuring time management: Keeping to time will greatly improve your personal care skills. Patients’ and Clients’ lives depend on how carefully and accurately a Personal Caregiver manages time. The ability to do exactly what you said at the set time will prove the efficiency of your personal care skills.
• Working on your Organisational and Planning Ability: As a personal Caregiver, you may be saddled with the duties of running errands such as cooking, shopping, food planning, and taking your client to medical appointments among others. Therefore, these may be so demanding, and for success to be achieved, you need to be highly organized by having records and a to-do list where you organize and plan out your schedule sequentially and chronologically.

 

Jobs That Require Personal Care Skills.

1. Child Care Provider: A childcare provider is saddled with the duty of looking after a child when their parents are not around. They perform responsibilities such as supervising the little children, guiding them with their school assignments, and even preparing their meals. Child Care Providers also ensure the maintenance of a clean facility for the child (or children).
2. Flight Attendant: A flight attendant is a person who works as a member of an aircrew to ensure the safety and comfort of passengers during a flight. They are saddled with the responsibility of providing meals and also discussing flight details such as weather forecasts, with the passengers.
3. Animal Trainer: An animal trainer is equipped with the responsibility of teaching animals such as horses, cats, and dogs, how to behave in a certain manner. These animals help humans perform some minor tasks.
4. HairStylist: A hairstylist performs the job of cutting or styling clients’ hair. They have close interactions with their client and ensures to meet their client’s needs and desires through their services.
5. Dentist: A dentist is a medical practitioner who performs the role of taking care of a client’s oral health. They treat various oral health problems and also encourage the observation of better oral hygiene habits alongside the cleaning of clients’ teeth. In some adverse cases, they carry out dental surgeries.
6. Massage Therapist: A massage therapist is an individual who uses touch and pressure to care for a client’s soft body tissues. They study the client’s and recipients’ symptoms and desired results, examine them, and enlighten them on adequate stretching and posture.
7. Home Health Aide: A home health aide helps a client live independently at home. They assist their recipient in activities such as dressing and grooming, preparing and making foods and drinks available, and helping them adapt to their health conditions. They also provide physical and emotional support for their clients by ensuring the latter move around the home with ease.
8. Nail Technician:  A nail technician is a pedicurist and manicurist who takes care of and grooms a client’s toenails and fingernails. They are responsible for sterilizing equipment before use and also cleaning, cutting, and shaping clients’ nails. Nail technicians meet clients’ needs by improving the appearance of their nails alongside the use and recommendation of ideal nail care products, and designs.
9. Mid-Wife: A midwife is a personal and health care provider who is responsible and accountable for the care of childbearing women and newborn infants. A midwife is usually skilled, compassionate, and knowledgeable in the care and assistance of pregnant women and their newborns.

 

How To Include Personal Care Skills On Your Resume.

There are several ways to include Personal Care Skills in your resume:

• Mention specific details of your past caregiving roles: If you have experience with assisting clients with bathing, grooming, laundry, housekeeping, preparing meals, providing first aid, and performing physical therapy, you can state them.
• Make sure that your soft skills are also included: Be clear about your ability to communicate well and to be calm even in the midst of a crisis. You could use specific examples of times when you had to think with your feet alongside how you managed unforeseen pressures in time past.
• Mention your Personal Care Skills in your summary or objective statement: In your summary or objective statement, you can state your personal care skills as one of your key strengths. This will aid showcase your skills right from the beginning of your resume.
• State your capability to provide personal care skills for different clients: Highlight any experience you might have acquired in providing personal care for different clients. This will enhance the expression of your competency in meeting the needs of different clients and recipients.
• Highlight your behavioral quality in terms of integrity and compassion: Make it clear that you are a person who upholds integrity in high esteem alongside a compassionate heart. You could highlight instances where you portrayed both qualities (integrity and compassion) while working as a Personal Care Provider.

 

Examples of How to include Personal Care Skills in Your Resume.

Professional Summary:

• Highly skilled and professional Personal Care Worker with excellent Personal Care Skills.
• Proficient with assisting in light Physical Therapy alongside providing recipients with medication reminders.

Work Experience:

• Assisted Client with personal care such as bathing, brushing, dressing, and grooming.
• Recorded Client’s behavior in the areas of sleeping habits, eating manners, and mental status.
• Paid kern attention to details that helped you remember important information about some clients.
• Made available means of movement and transportation for clients’ medical appointments alongside grocery shopping.
• Guided and regulated the client’s locomotive exercises as regards physical therapy.

Education:

• Completed Course Work in Professional Personal Care such as Midwifery.
• Participated in a Personal Care workshop that focused on effective personal care skills in the home and community at large.
• Volunteered in a rural rugged Personal Care Outreach for the less privileged.

 

How to Demonstrate Personal Care Skills in an Interview.

1. Prepare a portfolio of Personal Care Work that demonstrates your Personal Care Skills.
2. Give your interviewer clear examples of Personal Care issues and tasks you’ve solved in time past.
3. Show the interviewer that you have the attribute of communicating efficiently with your clients to achieve personal care assignments and tasks within the allocated time.
4. Show the interviewer that you have the ability and have in time past delivered personal care services that met the needs of your clients.
5. Elaborate to the interviewer about how fast you are with your care skills even amidst the tension, crisis, and pressure of the workplace.

 

Interview Questions To Test Personal Care Skills

Below are some potential interview questions that an employer might use to test an interviewee’s personal care skills:

• Tell me about yourself.
• Give some qualities that make you different and peculiar from other personal care workers we might come in contact with.
• Do you find pleasure in working with clients that need personal care? If yes, Why?
• Why are you interested in the care profession?
• What needful experience do you have concerning a personal care worker?
• What are the duties of a care worker?

Resume Skills