Carer Tips - going the distance better!

When a loved one is first diagnosed with a disability, people tend to go into shock for a while. From there, it is full steam ahead, as they madly chase around to find the very best outcomes for the person. Many carers remain in this mode and even when things are calmer, they find things to keep them at the crisis-driven, edge tipping point.

This way of living is unsustainable over a long period of time.

The direct results are Carer burnout, not being able to cope with unexpected issues, mental illness, isolation, relationship breakdown and many other uglies.

Being an unpaid carer is NOT a sprint, it really is a marathon and people need to learn to pace themselves to ensure a good quality of life.

Here are some simple tips to assist with finding and keeping balance in your lives

When things are not in crisis, relax 

This is the time to recharge your batteries. Have a long walk, or bath, or read a book or anything else you find pleasurable. The housework and other non-urgent things will keep.
Many people find themselves playing housework catch-up when their loved one goes to respite instead of relaxing.

Restoring your energy is more important than a clean house!!!

Create a sustainable plan

NDIS has come or is coming. Ensure your plan is not just a crisis avoidance plan. That is how you live now. The plan needs to be looking at sustainable and healthy living for all. This is the only way for Australia to save money in the long run.

Allow and ask for help

Being all to everyone ensures we will burnout. It is not a natural way for any relationships. Give your loved ones your best and outsource the rest. This way, you are able to enjoy the people closest to you and not be caught with those ugly friends called: RESENTMENT & GUILT.
Don't assume people will say no. If you don't ask the answer is guaranteed to be NO. If you ask, you have a 50% chance the answer will be YES...

Remember the gift of giving. 

Don't deny others the opportunity to give to you and your family, as you are denying them a precious gift.

Laugh & Meditate

Two very simple, yet effective ways to help yourself and give you more energy and reduce your mental stress. Yes, you DO have time....you don't have time NOT to do these things.
Meditation need only be 15 min a day to start with...in the shower, if need be.

Go on - give it a go......


iDareU has teamed with some amazing people to bring you a host of  Living Well - Taking Care of ME workshops.

Go to this link and see if anything strikes a cord with you. If it doesn't strike a cord - sign up for the Carer Kit one anyway, you may need a kick start...

http://www.idareu.org.au/happenings.html

Why should I pay?

This is a question I hear many times when we do our workshops. People want to know why they have to pay for the workshop and during the workshop they want to know why, with the NDIS, they will have to pay for everything. This is a direct result of the Government creating a welfare mentality within the disability sector as well as other vulnerable people sectors in this country.

Many of us send our loved ones off for the day and someone else pays for them to be there. The money doesn't pass through us - therefore people think it must be free. We pay $10 per hour to council for respite and think this is the total payment.

This is WRONG on both counts! Whenever something is free or cheap - it is because it is being paid for by someone else. We have no idea what the real cost is, so we assume what we see is the real cost.

There is a lot of nonsense floating around with the advent of the NDIS that everything is going to cost more. In reality, many things are going to be charged to us at the true cost. One of the advantages of the NDIS will be the transparency to the clients and their carers of charges and costings. This is powerful on many counts, including:

1. We know EXACTLY what something REALLY costs.
2. Money is just a manner of transfer of giving and receiving. A fair exchange.
3. We devalue people and the transaction when we expect something for nothing. Every person  deserves to be honoured.
4. We are always accountable to the organisation who is paying - they pay - we have to abide by their rules.
5. We respect and value things we have to pay for more than things that are given to us. We see this in our workshops - the workshops that are not free to participants (paid for by an organisation) ALWAYS have a much higher percentage of no-shows than the ones where the participant has to pay.
6. Giving people something for nothing tells these people they are not respected and removes dignity.

I was once asked where the $50 per person charged for a 5 hour workshop which included lunch, refreshments and resources goes! This was a very sad question, as $50 for any 5 hour workshop with the above is dirt cheap and is very obviously not making huge amounts of money, if any at all.

So the next time someone asks "why should I pay" my answer will be "because I value and respect myself and those I do transactions with".

IDareU

The NDIS Rollout – More than an inconvenience for too many

As anyone who reads my blogs knows, I am a massive fan of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) – once it is rolled out and working properly.

What you may not be aware of is that I am extremely nervous about the journey in getting to that point.

I regularly mention in the Imagine Better workshop that I see the process of the NDIS as a long renovation that will produce a much better product than it was before the renovation. And like with any renovation, we are going to have to put up with the mess and inconvenience whilst the renovations are happening.

What I failed to mention is that whilst we are being inconvenienced, we still have a roof over our heads and we are not in any danger of falling off the edge.

Since the introduction of the roll out of the NDIS I have heard some frightening things that are happening, including:

• A 15km limit on the distance you are allowed to travel to get a service and that service providers are allowed to travel to a client.
• Services being removed from a person before the NDIS is in place – leaving people with nothing.
• Inexperienced planners preparing incorrect plans and people being left out in the cold with nothing and nowhere to go to get help or answers.
• Making self-management of the funds so convoluted and paperwork heavy that no client can navigate them.

Although there is a phone number you can call, unfortunately I know from experience that the wait on hold time is insane. I was on hold for 96 minutes and in the end I gave up!

I seriously hope these are isolated issues that are being resolved very quickly, as they are completely unacceptable.

If even a few of these issues are true, many people are going to be tipped over the edge and there will be many more bushfires to put out in the disability community. There are already so many vulnerable people trying to keep it together, it really won’t take much to have them lose their grip on that tiny piece of string that barely holds them together.

I have a dream that the NDIS will be the end of a crisis to crisis driven industry – as the current system is. We are not helped until there is a crisis and because the crisis is being created by not helping those who just need a little bit of help, the crisis are not being managed, as there are too many that the system has created.

The NDIS is meant to be all about giving people with a disability the power to live their lives with dignity, empowerment and choice. It was conceived to remove the shackles of the antiquated system we have endured for far too many years.

As the Productivity Commission said in their report: ‘The system in place now is so broken it needs to be thrown out and completely started again.' Hence the introduction of the NDIS.

Please don’t make this a repeat of the old system with even more pain. People with a disability and their carers deserve more than the scrap heap. We deserve a safety net to be put in place to ensure we are not worse off whilst this mess is sorted out.

Come on powers that be, get working on a transition with dignity – because we certainly deserve it!

iDareU.org