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Shared Lives South West
Shared Lives is a unique type of social care service that enables people with a learning disability or mental health issues, older people, parents with a learning disability and people with dementia to get support in the ordinary homes of its approved carers.
The service can offer a long term home, living as part of the Shared Lives carer’s family, and a short breaks service, which can offer valuable respite to people caring for someone at home. There is a Shared Lives service in almost every area, usually run by the local authority; Shared Lives South West is the largest independently run scheme which covers Devon, Torbay, Plymouth and Cornwall.
Shared Lives South West supports families in the region through the recruitment, vetting and training of carers, carefully matching carers with those who would like to live in a Shared Lives family and providing ongoing support and monitoring to those families.
Jane Bell, chief executive of Shared Lives South West, said “Shared Lives is incredible and our network of amazing Shared Lives families and our staff team work hard to deliver a very personal family based service to over 260 people a week. Sadly most people still don’t know what Shared Lives is, yet it offers one of the most cost effective, personalised and flexible services available and is a real alternative to traditional care homes.”
She added “We’d love to hear from anyone who has experience as a carer - at work or for a family member and who has space in their home and time in their life to care for another adult with a learning disability or mental health needs. Being a Shared Lives carer is a challenging but rewarding role where you could make a real difference to someone’s life. In return Shared Lives South West offers full training and ongoing support as well as a generous weekly allowance and other, usually tax free, benefits.
01626 360170 website: sharedlivessw.org.uk Email: enquiries@sharedlivessw.org.uk
First published March 2013 By The Dart
