Coronavirus updates for Shared Lives carers

An update from Pamela and Becky – 17th March 2020:

Hi there,

It’s a strange and uncertain time for everyone here at PSS – and we imagine that you’re feeling the same.  We hope that you’re ok and managing.

We wanted to update you on our plans to support you as a Shared Lives carer.

Firstly, we trust you to make great decisions with the people you support as we go through this difficult situation. We know you’ll have the best interests of the people you support at heart – and that you’re skilled and experienced at what you do. We’re not making lots of rules about what to do in certain situations – we know decisions need to be made on a case-by-case basis, and we’ll be supporting you with those decisions. Just give us a call.

Your Shared Lives development worker and all of our office staff are currently working from home – but they’re still available for you to chat to as usual. You can contact them via email and on their usual phone number (all of our phones have been diverted to our mobiles). We can also arrange video chats, if that’s something you’d like to do. We won’t be doing monitoring visits in person to help keep our staff, you and the person you support safe – but your development worker will be calling you regularly.

Any face-to-face training we had in has now been cancelled, so please keep up-to-date with essential training on Learning Pool where possible.

You can find all the latest information about what to do if you or someone you support experiences symptoms of COVID-19 on the NHS website: www.nhs.uk/coronavirus

Please do let your Shared Lives development worker know if you or someone you support has symptoms of COVID-19 (shortness of breath, a new dry cough that is constant, and a fever). This will help us keep track of any potential cases within PSS and help us make back-up plans.

Things are changing so quickly, so we’re taking things day-by-day, solving problems as we go. We’ll update you whenever anything changes. We know things are really hard at the moment. Use your network of Shared Lives carers, and your Shared Lives development worker, as much as possible –  and let us know your questions, big or small. We’ll problem-solve together; don’t feel like you’re on your own in this.

Everyone at PSS is pulling together, determined to make this difficult situation work. Thank you so much for all of your support and patience while we, like many other organisations all across the country, navigate the storm. Our teams and our Shared Lives carers are absolutely amazing – and we’re going to be taking our fighting spirit to do whatever we can to get through this, together, just as we have at PSS for the last 101 years.

With very best wishes from both of us,

Pamela Oden 

Head of Shared Lives England

Becky Bloor-Steen

Head of Shared Lives Wales