Carers Discuss - Your Voice carer forum

In July, we held our third Your Voice carer member forum. They are an opportunity for Shared Lives carers to meet with our senior managers, and for our small team to update members on their current work. The main things that we discussed were the ongoing cost of living crisis, and the range of Shared Lives carer pay across the country.

Firstly, Shared Lives carers at the Your Voice forum expressed that they were worried about paying bills this winter. Some carers are understandably anxious about paying heating bills for supported people who remain at home all day throughout the winter.

The cost of living grants that people being supported have received or will receive are complicated. Based on legal advice, we recommend that Shared Lives schemes initiate a conversation with the person they support about either the £650 or £150 grants. We have also created two easy read documents to help Shared Lives schemes give supported people all the information that they need to make a fully informed decision about their grant money. This is to safeguard the Shared Lives carer against allegations of coercion and financial abuse.

We also now have a new relationship with the Department of Work and Pensions and so we have also raised the issue of the cost-of-living grant, given the fact it does not account for Shared Lives carers, and we will raise this again in our next meeting with them.

As well as the cost of living, we discussed how different benefits received by supported people often means that carers receive different levels of payment.

There was general agreement that it is not the carer’s responsibility to ensure fair levels of pay, and it is not all solely Shared Lives schemes’ responsibility. Rather, it is down to local authority and commissioners to ensure fair pay. This has been a long-standing priority for members and the Shared Lives Plus team, therefore we are re-launching the “Invaluable” pay campaign, based on the information you provide in the survey (centre pages) so please do take a few minutes to complete it, so that we can make the campaign based on evidence and focus on the real issues you face.

Finally, Shared Lives Plus outlined the process for electing a Shared Lives carer to serve as both Your Voice chair, and a trustee on the board of governors. At the time of writing, there have not been enough expressions of interest to go ahead with the election. If you are interested in the role, please search on our website 'Your Voice chair' or email info@sharedlivesplus.org.uk for a chat and come along to our next Your Voice on Thursday 26 January 2023.

Thank you to all carers who get in touch with us – we are committed to working on the issues you care about and Your Voice forums are a great way to share what’s happening.