Peer to Peer Support and Information Resources to Enable Loved Ones to Stay at Home

There is an urgent need for families to be given meaningful advice and support necessary to either keep their loved ones at home or to bring them home from care. At present, families are frequently and incorrectly told that they have no option but to place their loved ones in care homes. This is despite the often detrimental outcomes associated with moving into a care home and the rising cost to the country of care home placements.

We know that the expertise needed to give meaningful advice and support to those wishing to keep their loved ones at home doesn't currently come from professionals. Most professionals don't have personal experience of caring for someone with advanced dementia at home. However, within PCW we have a wealth of lived expertise, with all the co-founders and many of our other families, having brought their loved ones home from care.

We are working on a website based service that will empower families with the resources that they need, covering everything from legal advice to the practicalities of how to provide care and support at home, while also caring for yourself. The website will also offer a much needed space for peer-to-peer support. This will enable families to get real-time support from other families who are successfully caring for their loved ones at home, many of who also have relevant professional expertise, and invaluable ideas and tips.

To support bringing vulnerable citizens out of care and back to their families, we will also be asking Government to ensure that local authorities commit to making Direct Payments quickly and easily accessible to all families wishing to provide care at home.

This project will not only hugely improve outcomes across all areas for many of our most vulnerable citizens but also save the country a considerable amount of money over years to come. We are initially looking for funding for three years and in this period we will also establish how to make the project financially sustainable, which we expect to be able to do through the sale of disability and dementia aids and resources.