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When is your home not a home?
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In her vlog this week Sarah describes the valuable experience she has gained from caring for her mother who has dementia.
Hello, it’s Friday once again, and the vlog this week is called ‘When is your home not a home?’ My mum has been living with dementia for about eight years. Having carers come into her home was a real challenge for us all. As time went by mum started saying it wasn’t her home and she referred to it by the name of the organisation that provided her staff, and it took us ages to work out, "Why she was saying this?"
Eventually I had one of those light bulb moments, and it came down to such simple things – the people who came into her home wore uniforms. They kept a book about her with notes for their team and for us as her family to read. The book was in her lounge underneath her coffee table. How could this place be the home she used to have control over? My mum’s home had become a service – she knew it, she felt it, and we just didn’t see it.
How things look and how things are done impact on how we feel about what is ours. The words we use to describe things really do matter. As I’ve said before service users live in a service and people live in a home. I know this stuff and yet I missed it with my mum. Mum now lives in care home and it’s my job to help her carers know what is important to her. How she likes things to look and how she likes things done. And all that I ask is that they take the time listen.
See you soon. Bye.
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