Pamela’s story
How Sharing the Caring helped a carer in employment
Pamela is a carer for her 84 year old mum Muriel. Muriel has dementia and is frail due to her age.
Pamela moved into her mum’s house 2 years ago to help care for her.
Pamela works as a secretary in a local office 3 days per week, and was struggling to juggle her increasing caring role for her mum and her job. Pamela constantly worried about her mum whilst she was at work and her mum was at home alone, Pamela was considering having to give up work or dramatically reducing her hours in order to be able to continue to care for her mum at home.
Pamela contacted the North Tyneside Carers Centre and was told about the Sharing the Caring service.
Pamela was referred to Social Services by Carers Centre staff and received a Carers assessment with a social worker.
The outcome of Pamela’s carer’s assessment was that she is entitled to 8 hours of carer respite per week.
Pamela chose to access her carers respite with the Sharing the Caring service. She is now allocated a female support worker (the same support worker provides all of Pamela’s sessions) who visits her mum 3 times a week (two 3 hour visits and one 2 hour visit) on the days that Pamela works.
During sessions the support worker makes Muriel lunch, brings reminiscence activities with her, and sometimes takes Muriel out for a walk or to a local cafe.
The Sharing the Caring service has enabled Pamela to continue working, helping to maintain her independence, financial security and given her peace of mind as she knows someone is with her mum and her mum is enjoying her time with her support worker.
