Adult social care
Shared Lives
We're here to help you continue enjoying life in your local area
Our Shared Lives carers offer highly flexible, family-based support, opening up their homes to help people live healthy, fulfilling lives in the places they call home.
We can help you to continue living as part of your community, building skills and confidence in a safe, supportive and welcoming environment.
How does Shared Lives work?
Our Shared Lives carers open up their homes to a young person or adult who needs a little extra support to live well. They become the person’s carer, accompanying you to your appointments, helping you get out and about in your community and attending meetings about your care.
Shared Lives is a unique type of care and support, made possible by our caring communities. Our Shared Lives carers and their families will make you feel part of the family, including you in their everyday lives and your local community.
In Barnsley, we offer our Shared Lives service to:
- adults with a learning or physical disability
- older people in need of a little extra support
- adults with a mental health condition
- young people transitioning from children’s services to adult social care
- people who need help to manage their health needs
Our Shared Lives carers offer a range of support to suit your needs. This includes:
- long-term support, where you'd move in and live with your carer
- staying with your carer and their family for a day or more each week
- staying with your carer and their family for a short period of time
- day support, where you'd visit for a few hours at a time
Benefits of choosing Shared Lives
In Barnsley, we’re very proud of our Shared Lives service, which is rewarding for both the people we support and our Shared Lives carers. If you need care and support, Shared Lives could be a great alternative to going into a care home or having someone help you in your home.
Our encouraging, supportive Shared Lives service could help you to:
- learn new skills in a safe, supportive environment
- meet new people, building potentially life-long caring relationships
- put down roots in your local area and be an active part of your community
- get high-quality, person-centred care, helping you achieve your goals
- take steps towards living independently in the future
Above anything, our Shared Lives carers will help you get more out of life, whether they’re helping you join community groups, enjoy outings or grow in confidence!
Who will be my Shared Lives carer?
We carefully select our Shared Lives carers, who are recruited, trained and supported by us.
We'll carefully match you with your Shared Lives carer. This will help us make sure you're comfortable with each other before agreeing to spend time together.
We work really hard to identify any shared interests, pets, hobbies and places you both like. This will help you to build a bond and rapport. Our team will also be here to offer regular, professional support and offer you the chance to tell us how you’re finding your care.
Get started with Shared Lives today
If you think our Shared Lives scheme could be the perfect fit for you or a loved one, get in touch with our team today by filling out our online form.
We can tell you if you’re eligible for some help to arrange and pay for this service when you get a social care assessment. If you’ve had an assessment and already benefit from our services, speak to your social worker about shared lives or call us on (01226) 775023.
If you’re arranging and paying for your own care, we can visit you to talk about the suitability of Shared Lives to meet your needs and how much it will cost.
If you have any questions about our Shared Lives scheme, please email barnsleysharedlives@barnsley.gov.uk.
We're part of Shared Lives plus, a national network of Shared Lives providers. Visit their website to find some useful resources, including videos and blogs, about the scheme.
We're also registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), meaning that we have quality inspections. You can read our latest CQC inspection report on their website.
Interested in becoming a Shared Lives carer?
In Barnsley, we’re very proud of our Shared Lives carers, who do so much to help people in our communities to continue enjoying life in their local area.
We’re looking for kind, compassionate people to join us as Shared Lives carers and open up their homes to someone who needs a little extra help to live well.
If you’re passionate about helping people live their best lives and have previous caring experience, either from working in care or caring for a loved one, we’d love to hear from you!
Becoming a Shared Lives carer is very rewarding, but don’t just take our word for it, visit our dedicated recruitment webpage today!