Fund and support for carers with Donna Blanche

Melanie:

Welcome to the Family Carer podcast, where we help mums, dads, aunts, uncles, daughters, sons, friends, anyone caring for a family member or loved one to feel supported in their role and connected to their community. This week, we're joined by Donna Blanche from the Leonardo Trust. The Leonardo Trust is an independent charity founded in 2001 by a former carer to help and support unpaid carers throughout Dorset. They can provide funding in a crisis, counselling, short breaks, domestic appliances, alert lines, key safes and benefits advice and funding for carers groups. So in this episode we're going to look at what types of support the Leonardo Trust provides to unpaid carers in Dorset and how it can help them day to day. What the biggest challenges unpaid carers face and how their services like crisis awards or counselling help to overcome these. The application process to apply for support and how soon they can expect. Sorry. In this episode we'll look at In this episode, we'll look at what types of support the Leonardo Trust provides to unpaid carers in Dorset and how it can help on a day-to-day basis. What the biggest challenges unpaid carers face and how the services of the Leonardo Trust, like crisis awards or counselling, can help to overcome these. The application process to apply for support and how soon you can expect help. and how they decide who qualifies for grants and what kinds of support they found have had the greatest impact for Dorset carers. So if you're interested in learning more about how Donna and the team support family carers to navigate their caring role, then this episode is for you. I'm Melanie Cohen. Stay with us.

Hi, Donna, how are you today?

Donna:

Hello. No, I'm great. Good.

Melanie:

Well, thank you so much for joining us. Perhaps we can just start for anybody that doesn't know you or hasn't heard of the Leonardo Trust. Just give us a brief introduction to yourself and your your charity.

Donna:

So I'm Donna and I'm the chief executive at the Leonardo Trust. As you already said, we were established in 2001. So we've been going for over 20 years now. We're based in Broadstone, we're a small charity, five members of the team in total, but we get a lot done and we're really creative in how we can develop services and partner with other organisations to actually deliver services. It's a fabulous charity and I love my job and I'm the luckiest person to have the job I have.

Melanie:

That's really lovely to hear. So perhaps we can start by just asking you about the definition of an unpaid carer because I think sometimes that can be a little confusing. Our audience are predominantly family carers, so looking after a family member or loved one. So can you tell us what you mean by unpaid carer?

Donna:

So an unpaid carer can have different terms, like a family carer, and that's where you are looking after a loved one at home, but could also be, you could be looking after a friend, you could be looking after a relative who doesn't live with you, but you're providing a significant amount of care. There's also a definition called a parent carer, so that's where you're looking after a disabled child or young person. There are young carers, so you can have young carers and they can be extremely young, who are supporting probably a parent or sometimes a sibling at home. Also, there's something called a sandwiched carer, where you're looking after maybe a disabled child and you might be looking after elderly parents and you're kind of sandwiched in the middle of that. So it's a broad range. And it's really about somebody who's providing care. And they're not it's not a job for them but they're doing that out of love.

Melanie:

So it's not that they have to be living with the person that they're providing care for. It might just be somebody who's providing quite a significant amount of support for somebody else.

Donna:

It's surprising because it comes it can come across with you out with no sort of without you realizing. So you might suddenly have friends like neighbors who've become friends and you've been living their years and suddenly you get kind of you know, drawn into caring for them or one of them. And so we get to see a lot of people caring for neighbors. And that's lovely and that's community. But, you know, it has a big impact on the carer.

Melanie:

And I think it can kind of creep, it can creep on, can't it? Because what starts by popping in once a week with a little bit of shopping, as you see somebody's needs increase, it's only natural that you want to help more. And yeah, you can your role can gradually start to change until you are actually essentially providing care and support for them.

Donna:

Yeah, absolutely. It can just come out of nowhere, really. They can just suddenly find themselves in a situation and, you know, the carers need a lot of support.

Melanie:

Definitely, definitely. So maybe let's talk about the sorts of support that the Leonardo Trust can provide. and how maybe helping our listeners to understand how that might be able to help them on a day-to-day basis. Because I think sometimes it's the ongoing struggles that people are having that they are looking for a little bit of help with, the day-to-day stuff.

Donna:

I mean we take the view that we want to help practically. Yeah. So we want to actually do the thing. We don't just want to give somebody telephone numbers and information where else they can go. We try to as much as we can actually get it done with them. So we have a range of services and grants and we can I think one of our great strengths is that we can provide immediate crisis grants, so sometimes there is an immediate need and we can actually look at that really quickly and try to make a decision on that and actually get that done very quickly for somebody.

Melanie:

Can you just give us an example of what an immediate need might be, might look like, what that support might look like?

Donna:

We've had such a vast range of different things, you know, the weird and wacky, the, you know, something like we had one situation where somebody had cremated their pet and they couldn't, the vet wouldn't release it without them paying, they had to pay the rest of the money and they didn't have the money. So the vet was keeping hold of the ashes and they would distraught this family and they had an autistic child and it was a huge impact on this family and so we were able to do that.

Melanie:

Yeah, really great example because I think it's difficult for people to have a tangible understanding of what that might look like. That's a really good example of something that's really outside of the box.

Donna:

Something else, we had a lady who was caring for her husband, he had incontinence. he had had a very severe accident in the bed and also affected the flooring and she had scrubbed and scrubbed this lady and she was distraught and she cared about, she was really house proud and it was awful and she couldn't get rid of the smell and she didn't know what to do and so we actually sent in and removed the old mattress, sent in a new mattress, had all the carpets cleaned, and provided really good quality protective bedding to try to help that going forward. She didn't have any of the trying to get rid of the old mattress. If we're going to do something, we're going to do it well. If we supply someone with a washing machine, for instance, we like to take away the old one, we have the washing machine installed, so it's just good to go. They don't have to worry about anything else.

Melanie:

So it sounds like the support that you can provide is very practical and really does have a huge impact on people on a day-to-day basis. But I know that you do other things as well, other support offerings for family carers. Can you give us a few examples of those?

Donna:

So we offer a range of services and I think you've mentioned them already actually, quite a few of them, but domestic appliances and we fast track that. We have a policy where if somebody needs a fridge, we want to get them that fridge within days. Counselling, short breaks, we have our own holiday home which is lovely, so we can provide some respite for carers. Some of them will take the person they care for and some will be able to go and have a break by themselves or with family members. So we're really proud of that and that's something we're hoping to extend and to grow. We fund carers groups so that carers can actually get some peer support, meet other people in the same situation.

Melanie:

Really powerful.

Donna:

Absolutely. And we can also provide then lots of information to that group and really nurture that group. Home alert lines. We try to be preventative in what we do. So again, it helps a bit with the respite that the carer feels that the person is supported, that they can ask for or call for help when they need it. They can go out to the hairdressers, down the shops. You know, that sort of thing. And it also prevents, we try to prevent falls and things like that so that things deteriorate. Benefit applications, that's something quite new for us. We take the view, we're not going to send somebody off to another agency. We're actually going to send somebody in to the home to get that benefit application filled out. We're really keen at the moment to obviously try to get an attendance allowance for people and also pension credit, really important at the moment. So we try to get that actually done, get the form done off And so they haven't got to worry, you know, some of these forms are like... They're very overwhelming, aren't they? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I filled out quite a few and someone asked me to fill one out and I'm like, oh God. Yeah. So you can imagine what that feels like when you had no experience of it and don't really know what to put. Yeah. But also, you know, any other sort of information, advice or written resources. So we have a booklet that was written by a carer called If Only I'd Known That. and really it goes through her story and at each point she's like if only I'd known that and we provide the information there and then so that you know who to ring, who to contact about that because for many carers they don't even know as the title says they don't even know that they should if they'd known that that could have made such a difference.

Melanie:

And I think for many carers when they're in that situation they don't have the headspace or the time to actually go out and look for the things that they think they might need or they think might help. They just, they need, they need it sort of delivered. They need somebody to just say, this is what would be useful. Have you thought about looking at that? And it's, there's so much information out there that it can be overwhelming and you don't need it all at once. You just need what you need at that time. So having somebody like you and your brilliant charity to go in and actually help people navigate that is incredible.

Donna:

I visited one carer and her husband had been diagnosed with dementia and so he was on that dementia pathway and she brought out a box and she had all of this information in the box and she said, I don't know what to do. Yeah, I hear that. I hear that. And so I literally went through it with her and went, don't need to worry about that now. Let's do that. Let's get that done. Don't worry about that. Let's do that. Because it's just overwhelming and so many people just throw information at them.

Melanie:

With the best of intentions and with all the kindness, but yeah, it's just too much. Yeah. Okay, so in your experience, With all of the carers that you've had connection with through the charity, what would you say are the biggest struggles that you see kind of recurring, the biggest, the things that people struggle with most in their caring roles that you can then help with? I think it's fulfilling.

Donna:

Yeah, it's huge. I think the justice, this massive information and it's, you know, carers are exhausted very often and they don't feel like they have the time to call. Sometimes they find it very difficult to have any sort of privacy so if you're caring for somebody with dementia it might be quite difficult to actually speak on the phone to somebody else about that person, because they don't want to hear that they've got dementia or that this is what's happening. And carers feel like they're being disloyal. So there's that side of it. I think that carers, it's the health and well-being. We always say this, that if you're not looking after yourself as a carer, then you're not going to be able to look after that person. So they get burnout and they get overwhelmed with everything. and so the mental health can deteriorate. And so it's that, and it's getting in earlier to try to prevent those things happening.

Melanie:

And I think what I find really wonderful about what you do is that you seem to kind of wrap around all of those elements. So it's the day-to-day stuff where people need immediate reactive support, but you're also really looking at the preventative stuff too, to try and avoid the carers from reaching that point where they are at crisis and then there's even more kind of support that's needed to be able to rescue them from that situation. So it's really great that you can be so responsive in what you're doing and really help with all the practical stuff as well.

Donna:

We take a holistic approach. We try to look at the whole and we try to just So we'll take a universal view like our alert line service. We take the view we don't means test that and we just want to get it in. We want to get it in and get that worry taken off that carer and then we can make decisions down the line. Very often we'll try to understand in terms of their finances and we might better put a benefit application in for them so that then they can carry on that after a period of time we pay for it and then they can carry on with that once they realise how beneficial that can be and the peace of mind it gives.

Melanie:

It's just putting that support in immediately isn't it and then letting everything let the system if you like catch up to them but actually enabling them to have that support when they need it in the moment.

Donna:

We've actually, we've had clients and we've got that service in the next day. Wow. Installed the next day for them. That is incredible. So, you know, we love that. That's absolutely how we want to be. We don't have waiting lists.

Melanie:

So you must have so many applications from carers. How do people go about applying for one of your grants or for one of your services?

Donna:

All of our applications can be done online on our website, but we recognize that not everybody is keyed up on that or feels comfortable doing things online. So somebody could ring up the office, we will send out an application form to them. Some of our services they might need. to have a professional endorsement, but we can help them to find that person because there's usually somebody within their life or the person they're caring for who understands their caring situation. But we can also have referrals from partnership agencies like Carers Support Dorset, BCP Carers Support, and there are other charities and partners that we work with, Age UK, they can all refer in to us as well. Sometimes we've literally filled out an application with an applicant on the phone, so we'll fill it out for them.

Melanie:

So it just depends on the individual. So the best thing to do is just to get in contact with you in whichever way people feel most comfortable to do that. And how quickly would people likely hear from you about whether their application has been successful or not?

Donna:

So they'll get an immediate response usually within a week. 14 days maximum, they'll have an understanding that we've received their application and if we need any more information. So sometimes it hasn't come with a professional endorsement, so we'll then work with them. So they'll have an understanding that we're trying to drive that forward. But usually within 28 days we've completed an application and done what's needed. As I said, some of them are very quick. If someone needs a domestic appliance and it's what we call one of the crucial domestic appliances, a cooker, a washing machine if they've got specific needs around that, or a fridge for instance, we will try to fast track that and get that done within the week.

Melanie:

Okay, so we're going to link in the show notes your website and all the contact details for you so as people have got that to hand. and hopefully they'll then be able to reach out and find out more if they feel that's something that they could benefit from. So I know you've told us, you offer so many, such a breadth of services. If you had to pick one thing that has the most impact out of everything you do, and I know it's very difficult to do that, but is there one thing that you think that always is, you know, a brilliant...

Donna:

individual grants. That's where we started. That's what we started with as a charity. I think we have changed lives with that. I know of situations where we have completely changed. Give us an example. Gosh, I've got to think something off my head. Things like, we work a lot with Julia's house, so we've done some memorial things there. We've, I'm trying to think, even something like emergency, so somebody needs emergency accommodation, and we've been able to do that. So we had carers who needed bed and breakfast, immediate accommodation, but they had a dog, and this dog was absolutely everything to this family. and so we were able to sort something so that they could get into emergency accommodation with the dog we found somewhere for them. So, you know, there are things that have made a complete difference just at that moment, you know, and if they don't happen, things can spiral then. because of that or there can be further impact on the carer.

Melanie:

It could have been a really big barrier for that family with the emergency accommodation because having their dog with them was non-negotiable really.

Donna:

We've repaired motability scooters, we've done lots of things where actually to somebody else that might be, but actually if they can't get to where they need to be that completely closes in their well really quickly.

Melanie: 

It's recognising that sometimes the big things are the little things.

Donna:

Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes we do really small things like a train fare somewhere. We've helped families go to medical appointments in London, so we've paid some train fares. Or somebody just needing to take their... We've had... One really special one for us was somebody's... child was in palliative care in a hospice and they wanted them to come home and to do that we needed to get the right bed and everything else and we got that done really quickly so that they could come and they could be with their family and die at home. Yeah, that makes me so proud.

Melanie:

Yeah, as it should, as it should. Well, we're almost out of time, Donna. I'd just like to say thank you so much for coming today and spending the time to talk to me and to spread the word to the listeners about what you do at the Leonardo Trust and the support that's out there for people. And the fact that you can be so person centred with what you're doing is a blessing.

Donna:

Oh, thank you. And thank you for inviting me. You know, it's lovely to be able to try and reach as many carers as we can.

Melanie:

Yeah, absolutely. So thank you to Donna for joining us on the Family Carer podcast. And thank you for listening today. All right, folks, remember to hit this. We were so nearly there. All right, folks, remember to hit the subscribe button and share this with anyone who you think needs to hear it. And a final fact for today, 77% of carers who receive support services were very or extremely satisfied with them. However, 30% of carers surveyed had not sought out information or advice about support services. If you're one of those 30%, please don't struggle alone. Reach out to the Leonardo Trust today and they'll be there for you.

Donna:

Thank you.