Carers’ Support East Kent has been the most positive experience we’ve had
Stephen (59) lives in Birchington and shares caring for his adult daughter with his partner.
We started to have concerns about the mental health of our eldest daughter when she was 15 years old and over the last 5 years there have been many ups and downs including long and short hospital stays, often at quite a distance from where we live.
The stress of this, the constant worry about our daughter and wanting the best for her, frustrations with how the system works and making sure we were there for our younger children (alongside some employment issues) meant that my own mental health really suffered. Due to having to take increasing amounts of time out of work to care for her when things were particularly difficult, I lost my job and I’m currently not working.
Things are a bit calmer now, but we never know when that might change. We are very much needed to provide emotional and practical support to make sure she can catch up on missed education, accompany her to various health appointments and to manage her medication. It’s very frustrating that Carers are not sufficiently involved in decisions about overall care of the person and communications between services often remains poor and disjointed.
Getting support from Carers’ Support East Kent has been the most positive experience we’ve had. It was focused on us rather than our daughter and was the most consistent help after lots of bad experiences over the years. It has certainly helped to talk and they’ve provided some useful signposting too.