Support for family carers
The person doing the caring is usually the one nobody has assessed.
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What this covers
Practical help with the caring tasks
A partner doing the shower, the cleaning or the transport.
Respite, subject to availability
A funded category on our price guide. Availability depends on partners near you.
Help with the system
Assessments, paperwork and who to ring, handled with you.
Social work support
Family disagreements, and decisions that carry guilt.
Training in specific tasks
Safe transfers, continence care and managing behaviours, taught properly.
Connection to carer services
Including the national Carer Gateway, outside Support at Home.
The unassessed person in the house
Support at Home assesses the person receiving care. It doesn't assess the daughter who now does the showering, the shopping and the 2am toilet trips. She's usually the reason it works, and the reason it will stop.
The signs are consistent: the carer stops seeing friends, misses their own medical appointments, and starts describing themselves as coping. Coping isn't a stable state. One extra demand ends the arrangement and someone enters residential care early.
What Support at Home funding can do for you
The funding belongs to the person you care for, but much of it can be pointed at the jobs landing on you: the showering, the cleaning, the transport to appointments, the gardening. Every hour a partner covers is an hour you aren't.
Carer Gateway is the national service for carers and sits outside Support at Home. It offers counselling, peer support, planned respite and practical help. It's free, and many carers have never heard of it.
Questions people ask
Is there funding for me as the carer?
Support at Home funding belongs to the person receiving care, and it can be used for services that reduce what you're doing. Separately, the national Carer Gateway provides support directed at carers themselves.
Can you arrange respite?
Respite is a funded Support at Home category and it's on our indicative price guide. Whether we can staff it near you depends on the partners in your area, so ask us on the call. For respite directed at you as the carer, Carer Gateway on 1800 422 737 is the national service and it's free.
I think I am close to burnt out. What do I do first?
Say that plainly when you call, because it changes what we prioritise. If you're in crisis now, Carer Gateway on 1800 422 737 offers immediate counselling and support.
Read more
- Managing care on a parent’s behalf
- Managing a parent’s home care from another city
- Talking to a parent about accepting help
Other services
Arrange carer support near you
Three fields, and we'll tell you honestly what we can cover in your postcode.
Or call 1300 677 174. We answer same day.