Special needs organisation appeals for host carers

Wanted: Warm, caring people with buckets of patience and a strong sense of humour willing to host adults and children with special needs.

An SOS has been issued by the organisation CoAction, which provides services to some 400 children and adults in West Cork and is now appealing for host carers from all over the area.

They are crucial if the organisation is to move ahead with plans to develop its proposed new Home Link Respite Service, under which host carers provide short periods of care in their own home to children or adults with an intellectual disability and/or autism.

Prospective carers, who can be from all walks of life and who will hopefully be scattered throughout the sprawling West Cork region, will host children or adults as part of the programme, said Emma O’Sullivan, home link social worker. “Host carers can be married or single, young or mature, working or retired.

“They don’t need any special qualifications as they are provided with training and ongoing support, as well as an allowance,” she said.

Personal qualities are what counts, she says, along with warmth, caring nature, patience, sense of humour, dependability and trustworthiness.

“Host carers need to have a genuine desire to share in the care of a child or adult with an intellectual disability and/or autism and be able to give time on a regular basis,” she explained, adding that the organisation hoped to eventually have a database of some 16 families in the West Cork area who were ready to take children and adults.

“Our services stretch all around the region, from Castletownbere to Clonakilty or Dunmanway, so we are looking for families from all over.”.

Ms O’Sullivan said the organisation was hoping to attract a suitable number of people immediately, though she added that it would probably be at least June before the new service was up and running, because of garda clearance requirements.

“This may involve having a child or adult in your home for one evening a week or staying with you for a night a month.”

John Riordan, father of Laurie, 22, a client of CoAction is looking forward to the service. “The Home Link service will be of great benefit to us as we are older parents and aren’t at the stage of rearing a family and all the activity of that stage of life, so it can be a bit quiet for Laurie.

Laurie lives with her parents; all her sisters are older and busy with their own lives and families.

“Home Link would give Laurie the opportunity to meet new people and it would help her to grow in confidence, be more independent and expand her world,” Mr Riordan said.

“It’s important to us that Laurie has more interests and plenty of experience of life. When Laurie is out doing her own thing, we get a break too and this would help us all to enjoy our time together all the more.”

* Anyone interested in becoming a host carer should contact Emma O’Sullivan, home link social worker, CoAction, at 086 0278982, [phone] or [e-mail]