June 5, 2024

Volunteers’ Week – Paul

This week is Volunteers’ Week and we’re shining a spotlight on all of the hard work that our volunteers get involved with at PSS. We’re also going to be giving them a great big thank you for giving their time, expertise and for helping us make a difference every day.

Today’s spotlight lands on Paul!

Paul is a Shared Lives carer who gives a lot of his time to PSS. He’s always looking for new ways he can support people. This year, Paul stepped up and became a Chair for our Shared Lives panel. He offers a wealth of knowledge around supporting people in a person-centred way. He lives the PSS values through and through. 

What is a Shared Lives panel?  

To help up recruit the very best shared lives carers about, we rally a troop of experts together for our panels. This could be our staff, current shared lives carers, people we support, family members of the people we support. It can also be professionals such as social workers and others who are passionate about people and social care.   This diverse group of people form our Shared Lives panel. The panel assess potential Shared Lives carers and current carers. They only approve people who are fantastic at what they do.

By volunteering to be our Chair, Paul is really helping find us the very best carers to join our Shared Lives scheme, it’s an integral role and we couldn’t do it without him! It’s a pleasure to be with him on panel and everyone really enjoys the panels that they share with him. 

Well done, Paul!

Interested in becoming a Shared Lives carer? 

Shared Lives is a little bit like fostering, but with the big difference that it’s for people over the age of 16 (over 18 in Wales) who want to live as independently as possible. Shared Lives carers provide people with the practical and emotional support they need to live life the way they want to. Our Shared Lives carers support people either while they live with them, or just for the day. They can also become a Shared Lives carer to continue supporting someone they foster after they turn 16 or 18.

You can find out more about becoming a carer on our Shared Lives carer website.