If I could have picked a family, it would have been you

I was privileged to take part in our Scotland conference this month, at Stirling University. As usual, the Shared Lives carers and service users made the day. We heard from Ethel, a Shared Lives carer for 25 years, and from her daughter, who has also become a Shared Lives carer, as have both Ethel’s other children, now all living in different parts of the country. The first gentleman Ethel supported came to her for 15 days, when his Dad was ill. His Dad sadly died during his stay and he decided that he would just “stay with Ethel until I get married”. He still lives with her. Having had an entirely sedentary life at home, he discovered a love of all kinds of sport and a new confidence to go out and about. He still hasn’t got married, but does have a steady girlfriend.

Megan, in her early 20s, reflected upon her experience of being supported by Lynn, a Shared Lives carer with the Fife Supported Lodgings scheme which arranges family-based care for care leavers. Megan, who has lived independently for a few years now, said “I would have been an absolute wreck without them”. Lynn said, “If someone had told me I’d be doing this work 10 years ago, I would have laughed at them. I’d raised kids and that was enough. After ill health, I was trying to get back into work when I found about Fife Supported Lodgings. A highlight for me was when the first young man I supported said to me, ‘If I could have picked a family, it would have been you.’ Now all my family are involved: when Megan was between houses with a new baby, she stayed with my daughter for a couple of weeks and we’re all going to Megan’s daughter’s first birthday party later on today.”

Support for care leavers in Scotland

Back up to Scotland for the national conference, organised by the NAAPS Scotland team, Anne and Else, along with the Scotland Committee. Great to see Andrew Lowe, next year’s Association of Directors of Social Work singing along to a verse of “Consider yourself part of the family”, led by Jean, who discovered her singing voice and much more besides through a relationship with her Shared Lives carer Helena, which was self-evidently what Shared Lives is all about. Helena decided that the best way to help Jean lose weight was to join her in a diet – just one of the ways in which Helena was putting heart and soul into supporting Jean to build the self-care skills she needed to move towards living in her own place. Or as Helena put it, we support each other. The conference was well-supported: not only did Andrew give a thoughtful and impressive keynote (I’m grateful to him for the phrase, “the dignity of risk” amongst others), Jean MacLellan, Deputy Director, Adult Care and Support Division in the Primary and Community Care Directorate of the Scottish Government, chaired the event brilliantly.

Jamie talked to us about his experience of the Fife Council Supported Lodgings scheme, which provides Shared Lives-registered support to young people who are leaving care. In Scotland, the average age for care leavers to leave home