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Roberta Record, PCA
I have been pondering and talking with people about the word professional. I asked the question: Is a person doing direct care and personal assistant work, making between $7.50 and $9 per hour, considered a professional?
I went to the dictionary and found these definitions:
Profession:
1. A calling or occupation requiring specialized knowledge and advanced education.
2. The body of persons engaged in such an occupation.
3. A principal calling, vocation, or employment.
Professional:
1. Characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession.
2. Participating for gain or livelihood in a sport or activity often engaged in by amateurs.
3. A person who is expert at his or her work.
4. Having a particular profession as a permanent career.
5. Engaged in by persons receiving financial return.
6. Following a line of conduct as though it were a profession.
Professionalism:
1. Professional character, spirit or methods.
2. The conduct, aims or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person.
3. The following of a profession for gain or livelihood.
While participating as a Maine PASA representative in a meeting of professionals discussing the problems of challenging behavior of people with dementia, I thought more about the question of professionalism.
Direct care, direct support and personal assistance workers have a lot at stake in taking care of vulnerable people and assisting people with disabilities to live independently. I acquired specialized training to do this work. I am required to follow technical and ethical standards. I go into the homes and lives of people who need my help, and they expect me to be an expert. I do this almost every day, and have been for years. I get paid for the work I do by my employer, who expects me to uphold standards of conduct. For the rewards I get, you might say it is a calling for me. I know the education and learning I gain on the job have deepened my life and made me the caregiver I am today. Maybe that is why my friends refer to me as a professional.
There are thousands of people who do this work. As I spend time with other Maine PASA members, listening to them describe their work with adults and children with developmental disabilities and mental illness, I hear that they are professionals too.
What standards do others place on 'professionalism' and direct care work? Does it depend on specialized training? I have attended training that was shallow due to the lack of experience of the 'teacher.' I have also attended sessions that were so intense that it was difficult to internalize the information and use it. I have watched co-workers suffer stress because of poor training. Yes, we need to stress the importance of education, apprenticeship, and ongoing training to build and support quality and professionalism, so that people can feel successful in this noble work.
For centuries, caregiving has been a part of the family function. Now that science has stretched the length of life, with its joys and tragedies, people are living full lives with the help of medical and personal care, and are being helped by strangers, by employees. We need to take human care of this function. Human dignity and liability are at stake. This is why we can no longer see caregiving as a 'simple' role done by caring and available women. We must acknowledge the many skills the caregivers have acquired, pay for that skill, and not take them for granted, trivialize them, or diminish the value of their work.
I have respect for the people I assist, and I work hard to show this in my work. Struggling to live on low wages, not having my own health needs covered because I don't have insurance, being treated as less than a 'professional' makes me have to work hard to maintain self-respect. I regain strength through the individual encounters I have with the people who depend on me every day, but sometimes I wonder: How does the public view me and the thousands of other caregivers and personal assistants working in Maine to support our elders and people with disabilities in the community?
I am a PCA. The people I assist, their families, the public, and my employer need me to be professional. They expect me to be professional. I would appreciate being valued for the work I do, for the difference I can make.
Perhaps we need to start by getting others in the caring and support profession to acknowledge us - the front line caregivers, aides, and assistants - as part of the profession. As professionals.
Roberta Record is a personal care assistant and a member of Maine Personal Assistance Services Association (Maine PASA) This essay, which was first published in the November/December 2003 issue of the Maine PASA newsletter, was reprinted with her permission and the permission of the newsletter. To read past issues of the Maine PASA newsletter, click here.
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