Choosing your Carer Online!
- 02 May
A new internet service has been introduced for people with disabilities to find a carer.
Care Pair is set up similar to how online dating works, so you can find the perfect person for the job!
It is set up as a website (CarePair.co.uk) and smart phone app, created by a man who has muscular dystrophy and employs his carers using direct payments.
With direct payments you are allocated an amount after an assessment of your needs for you to use where you need it to help you.
Russell Smith had the idea of Care Pair as he struggled to find a suitable carer to match his every day needs, which include enabling him to get on with his every day activities.
He realised that every day activities vary for everyone, and as a carer is often spending such a long amount of time helping with the service users life, that interests will often need to combine.
When you sign up to Care Pair, you are asked to choose food, music and film preferences to help you find the right person for the right situation, as it will make life a lot moer enjoyable if both parties have similar interests.
As well as questions to help you find a good personality match, the service also asks if you want your carer to have a CRB check, to drive, do manual handling and other more traditional questions, and Russell is hoping that his idea will help change the way carers are hired, and improve how carers find adabtable work.
He is also hoping it makes emergency carers more accessible, as he has had few options when regular carers have cancelled in the past:
I rang up Coventry Council's emergency social work team and all they could do was suggest I rang up all the carer agencies in Coventry. They emailed over a list of about 50 agencies that were available.
After ringing, literally, all 50 of them, none of them had any staff available. So I asked the duty social worker what the options were, and all they could suggest was that I got admitted to hospital.
I was lucky enough that I could go back to my family, so I just stayed at my mum and dad's for the weekend, but if I didn't have that back-up then getting admitted into hospital was the only option.
It dawned on me that I know there are lots of disabled people in Coventry that employ their own carers, so if there was a way of harnessing and tapping into their care staff as well, then it'd be much more of a useful system for people to use.About 90 people are currently signed up to the service. Smith makes no profit from it, but hopes advertising will fund it in future.
Image source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1417325
Related articles
- 19 May
THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE MENTAL HEALTH OF YOUNG PEOPLE
The online survey posed questions to 1,479 people between ages 14 to 24 to rate which social media platform (of YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter) negatively impact their users.The...
- 25 Jul
SOCIAL MEDIA APPS FOR HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS
INSTAGRAMGOOGLE TRANSLATEHOMESWAPPER MATCHESFACEBOOK LIVEWHATSAPPTAWKYou can download these apps online and via Android or IOS devices as well. Enjoy!What do you think? Please tweet...
- 17 Jun
FREE DEVICES AND APPS FOR BETTER HEALTH
Some of such devices and apps which will be available in April 2017 are:AliveCor- A mobile heart monitor (strapped to the back of a smartphone) which will also save NHS money, reducing need for...
- 08 Jun
#UKHousingFast
The #UKHousingFast is a social media campaign which is led by people living and working in social housing to support the activities of Trussell Trust.This fast is in its third year and will take...
- 26 Jan
Twitter leads national campaign for compassionate care
#HelloMyNameIs is a social media based campaign created by one doctor, Kate Granger, in order to encourage healthcare professionals to introduce themselves to patients.The campaign is now being...
- 23 Jan
Social media for housing associations
Online engagement between many commercial and charitable organisations and their clients and users has become very popular. However, many housing organisations have not succeeded as well as they...
- 22 Jan
An effective social media strategy for your social organisation
It is important to reach a position on social media where the community feels comfortable in sharing the content that you post.Your content should reflect the trust and integrity your users have for...
- 15 Jan
The Social Media Presence of Social Organisations
However, there are still many organisations who are not taking full advantage of social media platforms by not regularly updating their users and followers with content, nor sharing links that their...
- 15 Jan
Charity urges homelessness to be put to an end
Homeless Link, in its manifesto to end homelessness, has urged the next Government to end rough sleeping, ensure employment and welfare support, provide more homes and protect the rights of tenants,...
- 13 Jan
Instagram for your Social Organisation
It has beat Twitter in terms of number of users, but it is currently outperforming in terms of engagement as well.Instagram's engagement is 50 times higher than Twitter. The difference is a large...
Responding to the DWP Consultation: Housing Benefit Reform - Supported Housing "Found the seminar very informative and gave an interesting and full insight into current thinking about the consultation. Michael was a very engaging and knowledgeable presenter and encouraged interaction with the audience which led to further relevant points being shared with the room. I shall certinaly look out for future events!" M.E. - Care Housing Association
