Many character traits provide the underground frameworks and structure by which support work can operate. Patience is a key characteristic that distinguishes excellent support workers who have real impact from those that move through requirements and tasks to simply get the job done.

One observable problem in the healthcare industry is the apparent urgency and fast-paced nature of requirements and tasks, combined with a high turnover of staff, which can lead to participants being rushed through their lives as others aren’t prepared to wait for their pace. 

It can be seen when a participant is taking the time to complete a task such as preparing food, folding clothes or getting dressed; a support worker may instinctively jump in to get it done much more efficiently and easily. This is mistaken for helping people, as it can be assumed slowness requires intervention rather than time to see the task through.

It is a given fact that the support worker can do tasks and activities quicker and easier than the participant, since they do not have the disability. However, this can be seen as smothering, or being impatient towards the participant, and subsumes responsibility rather than grows capacity.

This can be partially attributed to a poor prioritisation of values, where the tasks completed or things done for a person are seen as more important than their character, or who they become through overcoming challenges.

To address this, we must reset expectations, so that support workers understand that their role is to help build up capability and character for people with disabilities through their overcoming of daily challenges. This requires willingness to allow however much time it takes for the person to participate in something in proportion to their individual strengths and weaknesses. Patience is thus essential for all stakeholders.

Support workers must be attuned to the rhythm of the participant’s environment to effectively adjust and participate in it redemptively. They move in response to the pace of the participant, not rushing to maximise time efficiency at all costs, but assisting and supplementing where actual need is identified. When the approach of patience is taken, it allows participants the room to extend their capabilities as proportional to their current limitations.

There must be balance in the attitude of patience in everyday situations. Patience should not be confused or intermixed with apathy, laziness or lack of intent/purpose. There should be an underlying drive to serve participants with initiative and excellence.

It can be challenging to infuse patience into everyday practice, particularly when habits have been set over extended time. However, we know that all people have the ability to operate at a slower pace, and exercise more patience towards their external environment. This is seen when it comes to responding to change that they weren’t expecting, such as needing to work with new people on a team, or moving to a new town or home. We can easily forego quick adaptation, pushing and innovation because we are uncomfortable with change, and rather take time to observe, wait and slowly adjust and adapt. The functionality of patience is there, we just need to use the art of waiting appropriately for the context we are in, so that it is redemptive and leads to the best possible outcome in others lives as far as we have responsibility.

Patience, once found in support work, is highly valuable, as it travels across the boarders of vocation and finds its way into all other relationships and situations in all spheres of life.

An inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end.

Proverbs 20:21