Description
Assist patients with mental illness or emotional disturbances under the direction of nursing and medical staff. Support daily living, facilitate therapeutic, educational, and recreational activities, escort patients to treatments, and help manage behavioral crises, including safe restraint when required.
- • Provide routine physical, emotional, and rehabilitative care to patients with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities under clinical direction.
- • Collaborate with psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, and social workers.
- • Help patients adjust to unit routines.
- • Organize and encourage participation in social, educational, and recreational activities.
- • Serve meals and assist or prompt patients with eating.
- • Assist with nursing tasks such as taking vital signs and collecting specimens; may administer medications or draw blood as authorized.
- • Use de-escalation and safe restraint techniques to prevent injury when necessary.
- • Conduct intake interviews and document admission information.
- • Assist with bathing, dressing, and grooming, and model self-care skills.
- • Join patients in recreational activities (games, light sports, television).
- • Monitor and enforce unit restrictions and patient observation levels.
- • Escort patients to medical or dental visits and approved activities.
- • Clean and disinfect patient areas and equipment.
- • Conduct safety checks, monitor behavior, and promptly report concerns to clinical staff.
- • Document vital signs, intake, behavior, progress notes, treatments, and discharge-related information.
- • Perform basic administrative tasks, including data entry, answering phones, and updating records.
- • Provide empathetic listening, support, and encouragement.
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Healthcare & Human Services
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Tasks & skills:
O*NET occupational data (work activities, skills, knowledge).
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Last reviewed: Jan 2026
