Hi, just joined, looking forward to chatting with other care/support workers.
I’ve been a support worker in SL for over 6 years, generally love the job.
Out of curiosity does anyone follow the #awakeonasleepin campaign?
Hi Dawn … welcome to the canteen.
There are a few posters on the forum who juggle working ( As care workers ) with caring who will be familar with your line of work.
As for most inhabiting this forum , we are / or were family / kinship carers.
Interesting campaign … when considering that some ( Me for one ) are / were 24 / 7 carers … those able to claim Carers Allowance … now £ 64.60 per week … minimum of 35 hours caring … same sum even if one is a 24 / 7 carer … around ONE TENTH of the minimum wage.
If the campaign succeeds , put in a good word for us … all 7.8 million ?
Dawn, hi - just to ‘warn’ you (ie, ‘alert’ you!) that if you are a professional carer, as in, a care-worker, this may not be the right forum for you! It’s designed for family carers (ie, unprofessional carers!), though I completely understand why you might have thought otherwise, as the term ‘carer’ is usually used in ‘society’ to mean professional care-worker.
I only say this now because the moderators might be along to say it as well!
However, if you also look after a family member (or, indeed, anyone really) ‘for free’ ie, not on a professional basis, then of course you are absolutely suited for here. There are members here who are, or have been, family carers, and who also/now work as professional carers. (After all, they’ve had ‘free’ training on their family!)
I would say, though, as a message from a (now former) family carer, how IMMENSELY grateful all us ‘family carers’ are for the ‘professionals’! My poor MIL lived for 4 years in a care home with ever-worsening dementia, of which she finally died, and not for a single DAY could I have managed to have her with me, when she was ‘really bad’ (immobile, incontinent, not speaking, completely helpless, etc etc). I cannot tell you how incredibly grateful I was that she could be in a care home with professionals - all kind and caring - looking after her.
Dawn, to put this into persepective, I am over 65, receiving the basic state pension.
I can’t have Carers Allowance and the Pension, it’s one or the other.
My son has severe learning difficulties, can’t read, write or do any maths at the age of 39, due a brain damage at birth. Sometimes there are no support workers to care for him. So I care for 168 hours a week, with no opportunity for a break over Christmas.
Maybe think about our situation before you ask us to improve yours?!
Fair point, BB - but then again, if professional care workers aren’t prepared to actually work at that profession (because it is so badly paid and they are badly treated) it only makes the situation worse for family carers too!!!
If all the care workers at my MIL’s care home had gone on strike, I dread to think!
Folk like me, at least, relied on professionals TOTALLY.
The ‘villain’ of the piece is, of course, the government, in simply not adjusting their spending to reflect the HUGE ‘drag’ on the productive economy that those in need of care place on it.
And, as we know, a society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable members - the old and infirm…
In CarerLand , we are the professionals … not paid mercenaries who have the chose to be care workers or not.
Chris - I don’t think I’d ever call someone who earned a living as a paid care-worker ‘mercenary’!!!
But I take your point -
The thing is, setting the ‘unpaid’ carers against the ‘paid’ care-workers isn’t really a sensible thing to do. Divide and conquer comes to mind!
And in the merry meantime, the government go on pxxxxing out money on Brexit negotiations, HS2 etc etc etc…hey ho.
All boils down to that magic conundrum … " Caring is a choice " … allied with the freedom of choice in occupations ( Subject , of course , to whatever entry requirements ) to any disgruntled care worker … don’t like the job / pay , get another one ?
Once anyone joins the carer army , such choices are severly limited … for those caring 50+ hours and more … no choice at all !
Brutual ?
Life in the world outside of CarerLand is also brutal.