Employee Story 1
I love working as a care coordinator at the Toronto Central CCAC. I've been working here for 10 years now. My background was in nursing and I've worked in the hospital and in the community, and then came to the CCAC. One of the things that I found most rewarding about this job is the ability to still be involved in healthcare in a very special way -a very personal way - with families, to help people get their needs met and to plan for their future in a way that makes a real difference in their day-to day lives.
The job is also rewarding because I am able to exercise some leadership in the way I care for clients, based on our excellent organizational core values and decision making framework, I have the confidence and support of the organization to make good decisions when I am faced with challenging ones.
As a Care Coordinator, I am able to help clients in so many different ways. Some people come from hospital and they require a little bit of help at home while they’re recovering, and other people are working at staying in their home and need a little bit of help to do that. Each client we see comes with his/her own unique story. And client-centred care means that every personalized care plan we develop is as unique as the individual it was designed for.
I really enjoy coming to people’s homes, finding out where they’ve come from, where they’re hoping to go in life, what they’re really looking for in terms of their quality of life, what their healthcare needs are and putting it all together, it’s like a puzzle, you know, you see the piece that’s missing and try to find what will make it a whole.
People are often so relieved…they’re so relieved to find that there’s somewhere they can get the help that they need, often times they don’t even necessarily realise what it is they need. It can be something just as simple as once a week having someone come in to do a bath or having someone safely take a bath can make all the difference, and then other people need more than that. It could be injections or it could be some exercises to get strong again. People are often times amazed at what a difference it makes for them, and I find that not only the clients, but often times the families are the ones that are really especially grateful.
This position has a lot of variety to it. There are days when I do a lot of work on my computer, and there are days when I spend a lots of time driving around the city visiting all kinds of clients and clinics, and doctors. There is a tremendous amount of variety. We have training programs that keep us up to date on new programs. We also have the opportunity to move within the organisation and explore different career paths.
