Sam Price who has recently joined the Scheme as an Area Co-ordinator said ‘This has been a brilliant event and everyone who attended said they really enjoyed themselves, and you could tell by the smiles on the faces. Whilst many of the Shared Lives households came to celebrate, our aim is to reach over one hundred next year. Hopefully, we can recruit a few more families across the Black Country over the coming year and provide even more choice to the people who are referred to us by the local council.’
Shared Lives Carers Amy and Claire added ‘We would encourage anyone to explore the possibility of becoming Shared Lives Carers, it feels more relaxed than foster care and there is a raft of support and advice from the team. CVT as a Scheme is still new to us both, but we are impressed with what we have seen so far and very much feel part of something innovative. The young man who lives with us with us as a Shared Lives Arrangement, poses many challenges and no doubt there will be many more to come, but he also gives us a real sense of purpose and the knowledge that we are giving something back to the community. We feel we have a lot of life experiences to share and there is much to be gained in watching young adults become as independent as possible. I think we’ve found our calling.”
Registered Manager, Kate Morgan, finished off by saying ‘This truly has been a very busy and eventful year, last Xmas it was just me and Dean pondering if we had done enough to win the Dudley Tender…now look at us? We have close to 70 Shared Lives Carers and nearly 40 people we support. We’d like to thank everyone involved with the Dudley Scheme as the support and good will has been phenomenal, so let’s hope we can carry it through well into the New Year and start to set up lots of new Arrangements.’
If anyone is interested in finding out more about becoming a Shared Lives Carer, then they should watch the short video clip on youtube: https://youtu.be/a6gGzKm5Mpc presented by TV actress Arabella Weir. Alternatively, you can visit our website at: www.cvt.org.uk/sharedlives or call on 01384 597264.
