Articles

Live In Care Meet Up

16/05/2016

We had the pleasure of meeting a group of fantastic live in carers at our first meet up event on Wednesday, it was wonderful to be able to sit down and have a friendly chat about live in care over a nice bottle of wine.

We organised this event as we wanted to give live in carers a an opportunity for their voices to be heard, discuss what they love about their job and to express any concerns/ suggestions they  may have.

We also wanted to bring live in carers together and hopefully create a community similar to what we have achieved on Facebook. Many of you expressed how helpful it was to talk to people who understood what it means to be a live in carer, people who understand the complexity of the job, the good and the bad.

Some of the ideas that came up in the meeting include a concerns about support, for example support with problem clients. It was suggested newcomers to live in care should be eased into the role, as many carers are given difficult packages as their first assignment.

Another point of interest discussed was the lack of wellbeing support for carers - it was expressed that due to the personal nature of the job,  live in carers often feel cut off from the world. we discussed the possibility of companies intervening on special occasions such as birthday to allow the carer to retain a good work life balance, this would mean having adequate bank and cover staff. Also ensuring the carer would have access to wifi to keep in touch with family and friends during their downtime.

Live in carers also suggested that care companies should inspect the homes of service users before assigning a carer to ensure that the property is comfortable, this means ensuring certain amenities are suitable and proper for a live in carer to provide the highest level of support.

We hope to arrange more events across the UK. for those who came along, thank you for your time and honesty, it was a pleasure meeting you all.