Our Manchester Service

It’ll be coming up to four years that I’ve been with Be Caring now. Before that, I had a career working in secondary schools. I used to teach dance to children with special needs and disabilities.

From there I went on to get a job in a high school as a teaching assistant and became involved with the medical care of some of the students. That’s what I was really interested in. I was also working part-time as a barmaid at the time, which I loved, but it was too much. I had no life at all.

It was my sister-in-law who said you should come and try caring. At the time, my Aunty was receiving care and my Mum said something to me that has always stuck. She said, ‘don’t go into this job unless you’re going to care. Don’t go in and do it for the money. Do it and treat the clients like they’re your own family.’ I’ve always stuck to that.

I think I’d have left a long time ago if it was just for the money! I love my clients and I think that comment from my Mum still means a lot.

I love going in to see clients and just having a laugh. There’s one gentleman I care for who has Motor Neurone Disease (MND), so he can’t talk to us. We literally communicate in that house with laughter. We don’t leave that house unless we’ve had a right good laugh, and we do every time!

I feel like I’m treated like family. I have one client who says that I’m like an adopted daughter, (he says it to a few of us!) We can see people up to four times a day, which is often more than their families see them. I know I spend more time with my clients than I do with my family.

I thought to myself ‘how can I make this situation as safe as possible?’ – not only for my clients, but for me as well. So, I offered to pick up extra shifts to help reduce the number of different carers people had going into their houses.

When we were in lockdown, carers also supported people by doing their shopping in their own time.  As many were high risk and I had to go out of the house anyway, I offered to help.