Meet Jiyoung, a disability support worker in the OC Connections’ Day Support Team. Jiyoung came to Australia in 2019 with her young daughter at the beginning of the pandemic.
With little English, she embarked on a journey to find a suitable career that would accommodate her desire to help others, allow her to learn and grow, and have the flexibility to look after her young family.
After some research and recommendations, Jiyoung undertook a short course at Holmesglen Institute to become a support worker. During her studies, Jiyoung wasn’t 100% sure of what her next steps would be until she overheard a teacher speaking with her colleague about OC Connections. She heard that OC Connections was a great place to work, was flexible and had plenty of opportunities to continue learning.
With OC Connections in the back of her mind, Jiyoung applied to undertake a placement at the end of her studies. Unfortunately, the impact of COVID on-site capacity, meant Jiyoung had to complete her placement elsewhere.
This set back did not defer Jiyoung from the pursuit of working at OC Connections. As restrictions eased, she applied to work with us and was successful to secure a position as a Day Support worker in 2021.
Jiyoung has enjoyed her time so far at OC Connections, working with a diverse group of participants and staff. ‘I am learning lots of good lessons while working at OC Connections, I am mostly enjoying working with different participants and learning new ways of how to better communicate with them’. Her main highlight was working with different team members from different backgrounds providing her with a sense of gratitude and grounding.
As for future goals, Jiyoung would like to continue working at OC Connections and support people with disability. She really likes her job as it fulfills her needs.
We cannot wait to see how her career path develops over time. We thank Jiyoung for all the work she does with participants in the Day Support Team.
As part of our trained and specialised team, staff have access to best practice professional development and the on-going workplace support and feedback opportunities you need to enhance OC Connections’ participants’ quality of life and wellbeing and build a fulfilling and inspiring career.
We are always looking for new staff to help support our growing participant base. If you know support workers who believe that everyone deserves to live a fulfilled and meaningful life, where they have choice, are valued and respected and are supported to participate in society, please have them contact recruitment@occonnections.org.
