NDIS Support Worker Profile

Some of my Clients

Just to give an idea of the types of clients I work with. My current & recent clients include 4 young boys (ages ranging from 7 to 18), 2 older males (ages 17 and 38), and an older female with a child.

L (male, 17 years old) supported for the past 5 years
Acquired brain injury, autism, OCD, mostly non-verbal
Our time together involves supervision, entertainment, social outings, community access, exercise, transportation to/from therapy/school, etc. Meals, personal care, social skills, life skills, communication skills.

M (male, 9 years old) supported for the past 4 years
Autism, Anxiety, PDA (demand avoidance)
Our time together involves supervision, entertainment, company, social/life skills, informal assistance with and reinforcement of therapy, exercise, community access, etc.

A (male, 38 years old) supported for 2 years
Acquired brain injury, wheelchair with some mobility
Overnight support, meal prep, light cleaning / domestic chores and errands, night time routine, morning routine, ad hoc assistance as required.

R (female, 52 years old) supported for 1 year
Parent to a child with disabilities
Household support, vacuuming, mopping, tidying up, clean bathrooms, clean & tidy physical therapy equipment, clean & tidy bedrooms, etc.

Support Activities

• Life skills / Social skills practice
• Personal care (toilet, baths / showers, changing clothes)
• Cooking simple meals & meal prep
• Assistance with morning and bed time routines
• Swimming / play time / chill out in the pool
• Board games, card games, role playing games (D&D), etc.
• Learning activities (crosswords, puzzles, spelling and vocabulary games, etc.)
• Reading together
• Visits to shopping centres / Bunnings / Officeworks etc.
• Arts & crafts, painting, colouring in, etc.
• Computer lessons (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Internet, email, online safety, social media, etc.)

Detailed Bio

Hi! I’m Gaspar (yep, just like Casper the friendly ghost, haha). When I was young, kids would pick on me because of my name and I hated it. But now that I’m all grown up I love having a unique name and it suits my personality perfectly! Hooray for my parents being wierdos and giving me a wierdo name 🙂
There actually is a story behind it, just google: “names of 3 wise men Christmas story”.

I was in the Education / Training sector for over 20 years (until 2019) and through these jobs have worked with people of all ages and from all walks of life. Over the years I have worked very closely with clients such as ADHC (Ageing Disability and Homecare), FACS (Family and Community Services), and Housing NSW. When I was younger I worked with small groups of children and teens with a range of disabilities as part of a peer support program.

In 2019, I decided to make a bit of a life change. Specifically, I started my journey in the disability sector. What prompted this move to disability support work? Well, there were lots of reasons! But I can single out 4 significant things:

(1) Firstly, the last company that I worked at was bought out and I didn’t move over to the new organisation that bought us – a perfect time for a career change!

(2) Secondly, some family friends have children with a range of needs that require full-time personal care, and probably will for the rest of their lives. I have witnessed many of the problems and frustrations that they have faced while trying to get good quality support for their kids and that inspired me to look into this line of work.

(3) Thirdly (and this may seem like a silly reason) it was a TV show! I recently watched a documentary series called “Love on the Spectrum” and I thought it was a fantastic brilliant piece of television! The cast was outstanding and I was really impressed with how they managed the challenges they faced due to their various disabilities (Check it out on Netflix if you haven’t seen it). That documentary was also something that motivated me to investigate working in the disability sector.

(4) and finally, “Special Books by Special Kids”. When you have a few minutes spare, find that group on Facebook and check it out. Chris and all the amazing people that he interviews will just blow your mind. Positivity, Hope, Fun, Humour, Respect – these are all things I hope I can bring to the table as a support worker.

I really enjoy working closely with people and being a positive, supportive, helpful presence in their lives. I do NOT want to be a glorified baby sitter who has no role in improving someone’s quality of life. I have a lot of skills to offer and look for work where I can put those skills to use and am appreciated and respected.

I’m looking for opportunities to help kids/teens/adults achieve more independence, develop their skills, and be the happiest that they can be! At this point I am not able to commit to repeating jobs for multiple days a week because my support schedule is quite busy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help out every week! It just means I would suit better a situation where times can be flexible each week. On saying that, I am very flexible and can work day times, evenings, late nights or overnights, weekends, and am happy to travel if needed.

Physically I’m a smaller guy (height: 5’4″ and weight:57 kgs) so I suppose that is something you might consider when deciding if I’m the right match for your requirements?

A little about me: I’m definitely much more of an indoor person (typical computer nerd you could say)! I enjoy digital photography, video editing, graphic design, researching new Artificial Intelligence technologies and tools, a bit of gaming (I’ve gotten more into playing with my virtual reality “HTC Vive” lately), web design, learning new things (often by watching hours of YouTube videos, haha), and all sorts of other I.T. related stuff. After a long day at work on the computer or teaching computers, I would come home and relax on my computer! haha.

I do enjoy the occasional hike, some beach time, camping (as long as I’ve got service on my phone, haha!), and walking my dog (or anyone’s dog for that matter)!

I’m passionate about animal rights as well as human rights. As a gay man, I’m a big proponent of equality and social justice! I think gay people can make wonderful parents and should have the right to marry. I think women should be paid the same as men for doing the same work. I voted YES in the same-sex marriage plebiscite and politically I’m definitely more of a lefty! I know many political / social debates can be complex and are not black and white… but I think doing the right and ethical thing should always trump the doing the profitable thing.

I was born in Australia and lived in the U.S. from 1985 until 1992, this is the reason why I have a funny American/Aussie mixed accent. My parents are from Uruguay and migrated to Australia in 1973 knowing hardly any English, with almost no belongings, and 100 bucks in their pocket. For years my parents worked in factories and did cleaning jobs at night, sometimes working 3 jobs at once to give me and my sisters everything we needed. Eventually, they both built successful businesses of their own and raised 3 amazing kids (if I do say so myself).

I love my big noisy loud chaotic family but I also very much enjoy my own quiet time. I can happily spend an entire weekend in my room binge-watching something on Netflix, working on a new website idea, or organising the millions of digital photos and videos on my hard drives.

I’ve been to Space Camp and I love musicals (my favourites are Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, WICKED, and Book of Mormon). I’m not religious at all but love the idea that our “energy” goes back into the earth somehow when we die (like in the movie AVATAR, hehe). I VERY MUCH enjoy watching movies and TV (at home and going to the cinemas). I’m a total sucker for sad movies (I mean really, I get emotional sometimes during commercials). I’m not really a “sporty” person (although I did gymnastics for a year and can do a half decent backflip)! But I’m very happy to get active when it’s part of supporting someone.

I have very mild Tourette’s Syndrome – I had it pretty bad when I was young and it led to no end of bullying at school, but it mostly has gone away as I got older, (and I’ve had 3 decades of practice in learning how to hide my tics, lol). If I get stressed or run down, a few little tics can creep back in but luckily it’s been mostly under control for most of my adult life.

So! I hope that’s given you a bit of an insight into who I am, and after all of that… the point of the story is… I really want to help people to be able to help themselves!

Thanks for reading!
Gaspar