During his days as an agency nurse, Oleksiy was unhappy with the way he felt rushed in the nursing homes he worked in. He felt he only had “little bite-sized minutes” to provide support.

When he joined Afea in 2017, he found that he enjoyed being able to focus 100% on the person he’s supporting.

Since Oleksiy joined Afea seven years ago, he has gotten married, picked up Danish (or at least the “important phrases”, as he’s married to a Danish speaker!) and continued to make an impact on people’s lives.

Learn more about Oleksiy in our interview!

Can you tell us about yourself?

My name’s Oleksiy Popkov-Schonbas. I have been an Afea carer since August 2017.

I’m originally from Ukraine, I was born in Kyiv, the capital. I came to Australia in 2003, which means I’ve been here majority of my life.

Do you have previous experience working in aged care or the NDIS sector?

I had a Cert III in Aged Care and ended up working as an agency nurse in a variety of nursing homes.

How did you find out about Afea? 

Eventually Afea found me back in 2017. I was with a job provider that was trying to help me find work and they appointed me to a recruiter.

I’ve been enjoying this work and realised just how much I like the idea of focusing on a person or a client at a time. With the nursing home you focus on all of them, and you only have these little bite-sized minutes, bits, to do things with them.

It’s nice to focus on one client at a time. You listen, you look, you pay attention.

What do you like best about being a carer?

I like the fact that I can make an impact on people’s lives no matter how small or big.

Cleaning their house, helping them go to the bathroom, helping them eat, helping them go to sleep. Even just sitting down and listening to them.

Yeah, it’s both fun for me and also good impact for them.

Tell us something most people don’t know about you.

I’ve been married for a couple of years now to a lovely lady named Helena. She’s from Denmark herself.

Before we got married, we were talking about what our surname is going to be. In the end, we decided to hyphenate our names. So, there’s my original name, Popkov, and her original name, Schonbas. And we decided to hyphenate it with my name, hyphen, her name.

Interested in becoming a support worker in Sydney or Melbourne?

Whether you’re an experienced support worker or someone looking for meaningful work, we have a place for you at Afea. Apply as a carer now!