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Neil has enjoyed a variety of career experience including sales and marketing, advertising and publishing and latterly construction management. He was working in publishing in the Support Horizons building and transferred to working in care in March 2018.

As a support worker he accompanies customers on varied and activities including watching a film, shopping, cleaning, walking, gardening, art, sensory stimulation with music/lights/movement, playing golf, laser and clay pigeon shooting and aircraft spotting.  

Support for customers is carefully designed around their individual support plans, and risk assessments. The support worker is in a position of trust so is often involved in giving advice to customers, for example: if they are drawn to spending money on expensive or non-essential items or prone to hoarding. Neil enjoys making a difference by helping them to prioritise their budgets and with practical tasks such as paying the rent, tidying their rooms, helping to install a new bed or decorating.

Neil’s Customers are very varied and range in age from 21 to 92. Some customers have good physical and motor skills and mobility and enjoy exercise or undertaking energetic activity whilst others are wheelchair users; some have a learning difficulty or mental health issue. Occasionally some customers need a higher level of personal care or have severe mobility issues. 

Neil loves the flexibility of the working week, he enjoys meeting a variety of people with differing requirements and interests whether that might be physical activities or mental stimulation. He feels he brings life experience to the role. Neil enjoys giving his time and company and finds the role of support worker rewarding as he can see the difference he and his fellow Support Workers make to people’s lives. Neil feels that having worked in the commercial world for most of his life he is now able to ‘put something back’.

Neil would recommend the support worker role to anyone willing to work hard and flexibly. His availability is important to customers so he works some Sundays and antisocial hours.

Neil says that the Support Horizons team are easy to work with. The customers like to have consistency where possible, and change has to be dealt with sensitively, Neil enjoys the challenge that support work brings, sometimes involving persuasion, cajoling or negotiation.

Neil says that support work would suit people who can make a commitment, from anything from 2 hours a week who can work flexibly or undertake short shifts. They will need to be patient and helpful and, crucially, escalate or raise any issues to Support Horizons team as necessary.

Adam was a baker and a trainer for bakery departments in stores across the South of England. He would train staff on new equipment, products or technology. His work involved lots of early mornings and travelling around the country. In addition Adam had been involved in acting from school age and has been in films and television. The flexibility of the trainer role meant he could sometimes get away to do acting. His experiences include 6 months in Oslo and studying in the back of a Winnebago.

He wanted a change and knew someone who worked at Support Horizons and talked to them about what it was like in the care industry.  Adam felt he too wanted to work with people doing something more rewarding. He had done some caring for family members in the past. 

Adam started as a support worker in 2014 whilst sustaining his acting profession: he organises his schedule and informs Support Horizons of his availability so they can plan ahead.

Adam works with a variety of customers including people living with multiple sclerosis, Downs Syndrome and autism. He says it is completely different to any other job and you may have a fairly fixed list of people, but each day is different and you are helping people to live as independently and productively as possible.

When Adam started working for Support Horizons he felt his caring experience at home was useful. Initially he started working with someone who was fairly independent, now he supports all levels of customers, working through their support plans with them and understanding what he may expect to do with each person. 

He finds the moments where you see a positive change in someone you are working with the most rewarding. He also appreciates and values the level of trust that customers put in him and generally knowing that they benefit from his support. Adam says that is the main reason he started this job to support people and help make a change to their lives.

Adam says if anyone was thinking of starting support work he would say ‘give it a try you will be surprised at how rewarding it is. People could be thinking you may be working with people who are out of control or in need of a lot of support but mainly its people who just need a little support in their everyday lives’. When assisting customers he enjoy being outdoors or going along the river walk at Henley, ‘it’s just getting out or going out for downtime with customers to relax, see a film or even a day out in London’. 

The in house training at Support Horizons was really useful, especially for conditions such as autism, bi- polar and anxiety issues.