You've already done
the hardest part.
If you've been caring for a family member or loved one, you already have the most important thing this job asks for. Our Pathway to Professional Care turns that lived experience into a recognised QQI Level 5 qualification — while you work alongside us, earning, and learning on the job.
"I cared for my mam for three years. I never thought of myself as having a 'career' — until Bluebird Care showed me I already did."
Care Skills + Care of the Elderly. The recognised standard for HCAs in Ireland.
Lived experience that counts as experience.
This pathway exists for people whose only 'qualification' so far has been showing up, day after day, for someone they love. If that's you, this is for you. If it isn't, our standard route is the better fit.
Caring for a family member already taught you most of the job.
If you've spent six months or more caring consistently for a parent, partner, sibling, or grandparent — handling personal hygiene, helping with mobility, managing medication, watching for changes in their wellbeing — you already know what professional homecare looks like. You've been doing it.
What you don't have, yet, is the formal qualification that lets the regulator and the wider sector recognise that work. That's all the QQI Level 5 is — a piece of paper that names what you can already do. Our pathway is how we help you get it without putting your life on hold to do an unpaid course first.
You've already got the empathy. You've already got the resilience. We can teach you the rest.
To qualify for this pathway, you need:
An honest self-check before you go further.
From family carer to qualified HCA.
There are four stages — and you start earning as a real HCA from stage three. You're not a trainee, not on a lower rate, and not on probation in any unusual sense. You're a paid carer who happens to be qualifying alongside the work.
Have an interview
You go through the same hiring process as any other applicant — a phone screen, a WhatsApp video pre-screen, and a face-to-face interview with our Care Manager Cyril at the Wexford office. The difference is we'll talk through your family caring experience in detail, so you can describe what you actually did, day-to-day, for the person you cared for. That's the conversation that confirms you're a fit for the pathway.
Receive a job offer
If your experience checks out and the interview goes well, we'll make you an offer. The offer is for a real HCA role — the same role, the same pay, the same conditions as anyone else joining us. You're not on a different track; you're on the same track, with a learning plan attached.
Start working as a carer
You'll go through the same paid induction as everyone else — manual handling, infection control, safeguarding, medication awareness — and then you'll be paired with experienced HCAs for paid shadowing shifts before you take your first solo visits. From day one, you're earning. From day one, you're on the roster as a real member of the team.
Enrol on the QQI Level 5
Once you're settled into the role, we'll help you enrol on the two QQI Level 5 modules — Care Skills and Care of the Elderly. You'll study alongside your work, and Bluebird Care Wexford funds the qualification using the cost-sharing arrangement explained in the next section. When you complete both modules, you're a fully qualified HCA — recognised by the regulator, recognised across the sector, and on the same footing as every other qualified carer on our team.
We pay half upfront. You pay half. You get yours back.
We genuinely invest in our pathway carers — but we structure that investment so it's fair to both sides. Here's exactly how the QQI Level 5 cost-sharing works, in plain language.
The cost split, step by step
From enrolment to reimbursement — what happens, when it happens, and what's expected of you.
You must still be working with us to be reimbursed
The reimbursement comes through your next wage packet after completion — so you need to be a current employee at that point. The qualification is funded on the basis that we're investing in carers who are part of the team.
If you leave before completing the QQI
If you decide to leave Bluebird Care Wexford before finishing both modules, your half of the fee isn't reimbursed. Our half stays with you — you keep what you've completed and the recognition that goes with it — but the reimbursement is conditional on completion.
Why we do it this way
A pure free-course offer would be lovely on paper — but the honest truth is that some people would enrol, take the funded place, and leave halfway through. That wastes a place that could have gone to someone genuinely committed. The 50/50 structure means you've got skin in the game, and so do we. When you complete it, you get every cent back. It's a partnership, not a giveaway.
Two QQI Level 5 modules. One recognised qualification.
QQI Level 5 in Care Skills and Care of the Elderly together form the regulated minimum qualification for healthcare assistants in Ireland's home care sector. Here's what each module covers.
Care Skills
The foundational practical skills of personal care — assisting with hygiene, mobility, nutrition, hydration, and the dignity of the person being cared for. The module that names and validates the things you've already been doing.
Care of the Elderly
The specific knowledge and judgement needed for supporting older people in their homes — recognising changes in cognition, supporting independence, dementia awareness, and the ethical and emotional dimensions of the work.
Sound like the right fit?
Let's talk.
If you've been caring for someone you love and you've been wondering whether that 'counts' — it does. Get in touch and we'll talk you through whether the pathway is right for you, no pressure, no commitment.