Pet Hedges, Technical Business Manager, Credit Risk, Santander and Co-Chair of Santander’s Parents & Carers Network – 28/4/2020
This blog is going to look very different to the one I would’ve written when first asked to contribute over a month ago! Since then I, like so many others, am working in my home, trying to juggle additional parenting responsibilities (home schooling) alongside my usual caring responsibilities.
With so many people being told to self-isolate, there are a lot of people taking on caring responsibilities for the first time – for elderly parents, family or friends deemed vulnerable and even our neighbours – and this new experience can be overwhelming but I hope through this blog the readers will see that they are not alone.
So, a little bit about me first. I am a single mum to four grown up children aged between 25-34 and have three lovely young grandchildren.
My 31-year-old daughter was born with a very rare genetic syndrome, which presents as mostly physical disabilities, with a small element of cognitive delay. She has had multiple surgeries over the years, and issues with her heart has led to six open heart operations, plus other complications, resulting in regular cardiac arrests, quite often during the night, and is in and out of hospital regularly.
She is able to live semi independently with her youngest child, with me as her main carer. Following some issues last year, her eldest daughter came to live with me in order to ease the load on my daughter. I do all her housework, shopping and gardening and am on hand for emotional support, and take her back and forward to hospital.
I have worked full time for Santander for 20 years and have been in my current team in our Head Office site in Milton Keynes for over ten of those. I have always had a huge amount of support from my line managers who have allowed me the flexibility to care for my daughter, and now granddaughter. This is crucial. If you have any caring responsibilities you must share what they entail with your line manager – they can help you manage your work and personal commitments, whilst also ensuring it fits with the team’s outputs.
I have also found comfort in the support I have found through our Parents and Carers network. I joined when it was first launched in 2015 and always fully participated in the activities and drew on the support on offer. For me, it was good to hear I was not alone in the challenges I faced to juggle my caring responsibilities with full time work.
In early 2019, a vacancy opened up to become co-chair, and I decided to apply, feeling I had the right experience to offer my San UK colleagues from both a parent and carer perspective to help shape the support offering not only the network provides, but also the organisation.
I understand totally what it’s like to juggle children, work and caring – when you get to work in the morning having had zero sleep as you have spent the night at the hospital…..again. I am also keen, along with my co-chair Cathy, to achieve consistency across the organisation so that all carers and parents feel equipped to be open to discussing the issues that happen outside of work that impact their working day. Most line managers are aware that Parents and Carers are experts at multitasking – and recognise this as a skill that we can transfer into our everyday working life.
For those of you juggling work and caring responsibilities for the first time, I would say speak to your line manager and explain your new caring role. Talk through work hours options and expectations – both short term and long term. Until line managers (and your team) know what the issues are, they can’t help.
Also, accept that caring for someone will take up time. If that means that your to do list goes to pot – then accept that sometimes that happens. In our current lockdown world, things are open at odd times – there are queues for shops – you can’t just pop out and get things done as you have been used to!
Seek out colleagues in a similar situation and share your stories – They can help you navigate what support you might need and when. Or quite simply, just be your sounding board!
But most importantly, be kind to yourself.
Photo: For my general mental wellbeing, I run marathons – to fit it in, I train at 4.30am each day but I know that without running, I would not be able to cope!!
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