health care assistant; nursing; mental health nursing; paediatric nursing; health administrator; health visitor; social work; dental nurse; charity officer; counsellor; health care management; theatre technician; teaching; nutritionist; physiotherapy technician, occupational therapy assistant

What is it?
Health and Social Care is about people. Doing a course in Health and Social Care will enable you to develop skills and get qualifications to enter and work in the caring professions.

Why do it?
Because you like the idea of getting a job in nursing, midwifery, social care, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, youth work, health visiting, work with children or the elderly.

Qualifications
There are a number of courses that lead to qualifications at different levels and many involve both study and work:

• National Vocational Qualification (NVQ)
• Vocational Certificate in Education (VCE)
• Apprenticeship
• Foundation Degree and Degree
• Certificate, for example, in Counselling Studies
• Diploma

Where you could work
To work in the Care sector, you need to be interested in people and be keen to develop your skills. There are no specific qualifications to getting a job at the present time. However, you might have the opportunity to begin an NVQ or take up an Apprenticeship. These programmes are particularly useful as a 'stepping stone' into a career in Health and Social Care.

NVQs are available at different levels. You would usually expect to start at Level 2 and progress to Level 3. NVQs are work-based qualifications, which means you study for the qualification while you're working.

Places where you might work include:

• residential or day care home for the elderly,
• the community - in people's homes,
• hospital or specialist medical unit,
• GP practice with the community nurse team,
• dental practice,
• hospital or medical laboratory,
• office within a hospital or health centre,
• young people's unit or home,
• specialist units for disabled people,
• young offenders or prison.

NEXT PAGE