Holiday respite

[needmorecoffee]

any one ever managed to get help on Xmas day?
Or, got a respite carer to come on holiday with them to help care for the disabled child?

paid for by someone else you mean? (aka social)

I have a friend who lives up in Gloucester and she works with a few families (helping them out with whatever the family needs) and went on holiday with 2 of them this year, getting paid and having a holiday (as such!). It can be done but it's all about finding the right person and sometimes having to do it off the books between you and them. I found a great girl from the agency and now pay her independently - it works for us and I have sussed her out with next year in mind - these people are just so hard to find and they don't come along that often. If you find someone you click with then it's worth asking what they feel about it?
Good luck!

Paid for by me, yes. Definitely to come on holiday with us - we have vast amounts of air miles and stay with my parents in France so there is little or no additional cost to take an extra person out.

You have to be careful not to take the proverbial though - it's not a holiday for them as they are away from home and family and they will be working v long hours on the days you travel. So you need to make sure food and accommodation is good and they work sensible hours and get time out to themselves. Otherwise their misery rubs off on you!

Christmas day itself might be difficult - I imagine you might have to pay double time, or advertise a loooong way in advance for someone who isn't bothered if they don't see their own family on Christmas day.

r3dh3d, do you pay a flat rate for the week or an hourly rate? and how do you work out the hours?

Wheel - we'd usually have someone right through the holidays. So they would work Mon-Fri 9-7 plus 2 nights' babysitting for a fixed wage. Any overtime is voluntary and paid at a slightly higher rate. We'd pay overtime on the travel days (where you probably all have to get up at 5am or something ghastly) and try to stick to giving the weekends "off" because handling DD1 for 14 days at a stretch is no joke. Similarly we do breakfast and getting dressed, but expect them to handle the other mealtimes.

So we pay the same rate whether away or at home though there's more opportunity for overtime. We provide "food on duty" as well - it's basically evolved from a SN Nanny role so we have similar rules and the rates are fairly standard.

I'm trying to get Direct payments to pay for someone. We haven't had a break for years as a family because of dd. DH doesn't want to be caring for her 24 hours a day in a strange place. Its not a holiday then.
Our 'holidays' are camping.

We were offered Xmas Day and New Years Day as they are our usual respite/ short break days (2.25 hrs each day)

But we've turned them down because the poor woman deserves the day off and we'll be at my parents' anyway.

If you had direct payments, you could use them for whatever and whoever, as long as it's providing a service to help you and you daughter.

Have SS assessed you for direct payments?

social services will give us DP to employ a carer on christmas day but the agency can't find anyone who will work crimbo depite double pay.
weidrly enough the SS haven't reduced the DP we got over the summer back from 700 quid a week to 100. We don't have a social worker at the mo to tell!

Just call the office and speak to whoever's there - this happened to someone I know and they ended up having to pay it all back when they realised that their child had started school.

You will need to find a fairly special person to camp with, btw. I posted exactly this question a while back on a Nanny forum (because our then SN Nanny had volunteered to go camping with us which I thought was a bit beyond the call of duty so was curious to see what others thought) and about 80% said that though they would work on a villa holiday for their families, there was no power on earth that could force them to go camping. Those that would go all wanted their own separate tent/caravan.

OK, Nannies can be a bit of a pampered breed. But it wasn't just the hardship of camping - a lot of them were quite shy and worried about snoring/appearing in their PJs/whatever.

oh, I'd want a seperate tet for the carer too! dd sleeps with me but I'd need help with breakfast etc etc
I would go five star hotel but my budget stretches only to camping. Wouldn;t the Ritz be nice

I'd say the minimum requirement would be their own bucket....