Employing a carer for disabled child

[LegoAndLolDolls]

I'm in two minds about this but my gut is saying yanbu

I'm looking for a carer for my disabled child. Found someone looking for a carer role and had a chat. It's been a week now and it was left for them to phone me with a day they come for a interview as they couldn't come last week. No reply, nothing, not even say they are no longer interested. I'm presuming they dont want the job now.

To me they already seem unreliable and not proactive enough now anyway. In theory they have this week still to contact me with a suitable day for a interview but in reality it's been over a week and I would now be fitting them in at very short notice.

My gut says if this was a job I was advertising for as a professional then people who want a weeks delay for a interview and then need chasing wouldnt make the cut.

It's so frustrating as I have had three people interested. One I told I was waiting to offer a interview too, did they want a chat anyway or wait to see if the interview went ok. They read and then ignored that text. Another that seemed interested too but again didnt get back to me. It's not minimum wage and is set conditions by my council.

I just ever see myself leaving my child in people likes care. A care agency would cost the council twice as much and be a different carer every time but it's much more appealing right now as those people actually are proactive and I wouldnt be managing them either

I have asked the school but it's too far away. He goes to a niche SEN school and it's the other side of the county.

His home link worker is now half a hour late with no word so I'm guessing she cant be arsed either. FML. It's not having a disabled child that is hard, its engaging with services.

Yep it does make life so much harder , particularly in COVID times everything seems to have ground to a halt

I worked direct for a company op. The young lady I supported had an established team which was requested by the family otherwise they'd have all sorts of people. As time went on there were issues with management ext. so the family poached the regular staff to work directly for them cutting out the management. They were basically running the service themselves. Managers never answered their phones, random people would be sent to the service with no training ext. could you start with a company for a while until you get to know carers.

@alltheadrenalin what type of company is it? Do you mean a care agency? I would be up for that if if could get some fairly regular faces I think. Then the council would have to take it over because it would cost twice what respite PA's cost.

I did end up giving thousands back to the council as they kept ignoring the quarterlies. But I was allowed to use the backlog for any type of respite. He already had overnight but I was allowed to buy extra nights, and day services. I was also allowed to use for disabled holiday clubs. Mainly as they knew the difficulties in providing respite other than overnight. This was of course not covid times.

I have direct payments and hire a carer for my son. We've had 3 different carers in total over the years, 2 we're TA's from his school and the 3rd was his school transport escort who I just asked directly if she were interested in the work as I liked her and my son seemed to respond well to her. The others I contacted the school and they asked the staff. If your child's school is too far away, it might be worth contacting any closer special schools/units to ask if they can send a message out to staff to see if anyone is interested? TA's are usually low paid and not paid in holidays so lots of them do respite work outside of school. Several of my friends also have DP and most have found their carers via special school staff. One did try an agency first but found them a bit hit and miss with who they sent.
Your support worker at the council should really be more proactive with helping you with this as it can be hugely stressful when our lives are stressful enough!

Hello it was a dedicated care company rather then agency so all the staff were contracted with a few additional bank support workers.

I hired a couple of nannies from a nanny agency for DS (severe cerebral palsy), the first one was wonderful, but then we moved areas, the second unfortunately was dreadful and I had to fire her after a week. I paid privately though, but we did receive DLA which I guess was a contribution towards the cost.

If there's any way of trying to hire a nanny with experience of children with SN she'd be worth her weight in gold.