Are allied health assistants required to assist with support work, personal care and hygiene activities?

You have no strict requirements regarding support work and personal care. You will be provided with information about a client’s needs before you apply to work with them.

An allied health assistant’s primary role is to help build a client’s capacity. This said, sometimes your role and responsibilities won’t appear ‘therapeutic’, e.g helping a client with an intellectual disability to get ready for school. However, it is important to remember that there are strategies you can use to help organise their thoughts and executive planning to increase your client’s independence.

When supporting a client in everyday tasks, remember to keep a client’s goals in mind and implement therapy strategies where appropriate. You can ask the client’s allied health professional to provide guidance on how to do this.

It’s a good idea to chat about any non-therapeutic work that the client may need help with while you’re working with them during your meet and greet. Depending on what your clients need are and how comfortable you feel with the type of additional activities they are requesting, you can decide how you would like to proceed.

You can

let them know you’d like to work with them but would prefer not to assist with anything that is non-therapeutic,
let them know you’d like to work with them but ask them to modify the activities to a level you feel comfortable helping with, or
choose not to proceed.

The main thing to keep in mind is that it’s always better to be open and honest from the get-go.

I’ve met the client and we both want to proceed, what’s next?
Firstly, great job! Now that both you and the client are committed to working with each other, we’ll need to organise for the client's Allied Health Professional (AHP) to delegate [...]

How do I know if the client would like to work with me?
When you submit your application to work with a client, you provide some times for when you'll be available for a Meet & Greet. A client is notified that you've [...]

What should I consider when applying to work with clients?
We encourage our allied health assistants to apply for 1 to 2 clients at first and get into a steady rhythm of working with them before taking on any more [...]