Time for another guest blog. Here is our Director of Support and Development, Anna McEwen, reflecting on Shared Lives week after exactly a year with us – a year in which she’s had a huge impact upon our work! So Happy Anniversary to Anna, who writes:
It’s very timely that Shared Lives week 2014 includes my one year anniversary of working with Shared Lives Plus! For me, the year has flown, there are still things I should know that I don’t and I certainly can’t use the “I’m new” excuse any more. But we’ve seen some great work over the year, schemes developing and expanding, new schemes establishing and national providers beginning to develop Shared Lives services. The best bits, in my opinion, are the stories that never cease to amaze me of Shared Lives carers welcoming people into their homes, sharing their homes and family life and helping people live good, and real, lives.
So this Shared Lives week as we focused on our theme of “Living good lives”, we’ve seen celebrations up and down the country to recognise the amazing work of Shared Lives carers and schemes. There have been Shared Lives bake offs, ukulele concerts, tea parties and drinks receptions, ten pin bowling competitions and a trip to a vintage fairground. Information events have been organised in shopping centres, libraries and town centres to raise awareness of Shared Lives. We had a fabulous parliamentary reception hosted by Liz Kendall where Shared Lives carers and people who live with them were welcomed along with MPs and given the recognition they deserve and where we also premiered our new film featuring some amazing and inspirational Shared Lives carers and the ladies they support.
All Shared Lives carers are amazing and inspirational I think. I had the privilege to work with a group of them when I worked in a Shared Lives scheme and they inspired my passion for Shared Lives. Ordinary people who open their homes and welcome others in to live as part of their families – extraordinary. I hope that one day, when I have more bedrooms than children in my house, I will be able to open my home too. Lives change in Shared Lives, people have the opportunity to learn things others have said they could never learn and have experiences they could never have imagined. Relationships are the key to Shared Lives, and as with any of us, if we feel secure in our relationships, we can do anything. True also for people using Shared Lives, who have the opportunity to build those relationships and have the confidence to try new things because they know they have people standing by them who won’t let them down.
I have seen time and time again that Shared Lives enables older and disabled people to live a good life in the same way that most of us take for granted. So, on my first anniversary with Shared Lives Plus this Shared Lives week, I will raise my glass to Shared Lives carers everywhere who do the most amazing job, and make it my mission in my second year at Shared Lives Plus, to keep on talking about you and raising awareness of the wonderful work you do so that more people will have the opportunity to live a good life in Shared Lives in the future.
Anna McEwen
16 October 2014
Escaping the invisible asylum 