Shared Lives

Caring

Inspiring

Empowering

Living in the Community

Shared Lives offers an alternative and flexible type of accommodation, care and support for adults. We enable people to live in the community while being supported in a more normal and ‘real life’ environment.

Our supported people live in the homes of their carers, sharing in the lives and activities of the host family.

Shared Lives is all about relationships, helping the people we support grow and maintain their confidence, make new friends and learn new skills.

We also offer day support, short breaks or longer-term care arrangements for the people we support outside the Shared Lives service.

We have built the Shared Lives service over many years, pioneering the person-centred and community-based care models.

About Shared Lives

Member of shared lives looking at a cake stand

Glenn and James posing with friends in a hall

Members of shared lives standing outside for a party

Hand-made sign with the writing: Thank You To All Our Shared Lives Carers

James and Glenn taking another selfie with friends

James and Glenn taking a selfie with friends

Thomas dressed as a police man for a New Centre Stage theatre performance.

Glenn and James sitting next to each other laughing

Contact Details

Our Stories

Glenn's Story

James' Story

Thomas' Story

Sheila's Story

Judy's Story

Shared Lives is a CQC registered service and has a ‘GOOD’ rating.

Sheila's Story

In 1986 B, social worker approached me and my husband Michael as we were registered foster carers.

He told us he had a young man living in Springbrook (children’s home) and would we take him home. We initially said no as I was working at the time as a special needs teacher and bringing up my two boys, Andrew, and Ian.

B persuaded us to go to Springbrook and meet David and once we met him Michael said we cannot leave him there, he came to stay with us for two weekends and then moved in with us and became part of our family and the rest is history!

In the April of 1986 B again contacted us to say that they had a young man living in The Poplars who was very unhappy and crying all the time. Again, I said no but we went out to a pub for a drink with Colin and knew then that we could give him a loving stable home and he moved in the following week.

They have both been part of our family ever since, you take it for granted sometimes how much it actually takes for someone to move in and adapt to your family life.

We have been through may changes over the years and people trying to change our family home into something else, but it is a family home, and we have stuck together as a family.

We have had challenges along the way but also lots of fun and laughter and trying new experiences as a family. My sons Andrew and Ian see Colin and David as their brothers. We both decided that we would treat David and Colin the same way as our sons and bring them all up together and some of this seems to have worked well!

I can say from the bottom of my heart that they have both enriched our lives and given it meaning.

Shared Lives over the years has developed as it should do, and it is much more supportive for me as a carer. I know I can phone up anytime to get the help and support from my shared lives officer and the team. Colin and David feel supported and included and love the social events and meet ups with all their friends in Shared Lives. The training days have all made a difference. It has been a massive learning curve for me over the years being a shared lives carer and patience and a sense of humour are needed more than anything.

I want Colin and David to live their lives and be happy and have things to look forward to and to feel safe, supported and loved by us as a family.

Hannah's Story

Halloween was amazing. I had a party at my house and I invited all my friends in supported living. I thought of the theme for the party, went out and bought all the food and sweets! I opened the door to the Trick or Treaters every time they knocked and had a chat with them and gave them their treats. No tricks this year.

It has not always been like this, not close. I came to Poulsom Drive (one of Supported Living’s tenanted homes) five years ago from my family’s home. I wanted to be more independent from my family and live in my own home.

I can get upset and angry at times but I didn’t know that it could make it so hard to make friends. Since living at Poulsom Drive they have helped me work out ways to cope with anger and bad feelings which usually make me shout and swear.

I didn’t like feeling angry, the only way I can describe how it made me feel is by telling you my mind feels crumbly and I struggle with how to handle the rest of my day.

My emotional wellbeing has really improved and I know how to stop things getting out of hand. When it does feel like it might, I now go for a walk around the block by my house or listen to relaxing music.

One of the best things that living in Poulsom Drive has given me is the ability to know what others may be thinking or feeling. And I know that no one really likes it when my passionate nature (their words!) comes out so my relationships with the other tenants in Poulsom has really improved.

Understanding what other people think and feel, and what I need to give and to take to make a relationship work, is probably my biggest achievement at Poulsom. I now have a wide circle of friends, and a boyfriend, and I have a community in which I play a big part.

These friends were the ones I invited to my very first Halloween party this year, and we had a blast!

Poulsom has also helped me discover lots of other things about myself and things I like to do. I have my own part of the garden, which I look after throughout the year.

In summer, there is nothing I like better than sitting in my egg chair in my garden, chatting to the neighbours.

And I bought that egg chair – a great thing about Poulsom and New Directions is the support they have given me to be independent, especially with my money.

I now understand my benefits and how to manage my money in my bank account, and how much money I have got and what I can afford to buy. But I have also learned more about what bills I must pay and how to pay them using my account.

As I said, I could get very upset and angry but in truth, I was sometimes reacting to how other people saw me – and talked about me. My support staff encouraged me to get involved with MENCAP, this is where I met my boyfriend and lots of new friends.

I enjoy going to MENCAP, and with them I have been involved in a HATE CRIME awareness session for school children, to help them understand how words can be hurtful to people with learning disabilities like me.

I can now express myself to these young people, I can now make friends and have a boyfriend, I now have choices and make my own decisions.

I can now take part in my community and when I do get upset I can now go for a walk or sit in my chair in the garden until the upset goes.

I know that if I am not happy with something, I can tell the managers and they help me get it sorted – I feel I am listened to and that’s so important to me.

No tricks at Poulsom, just treats for me now. Thanks to everyone.

Jean's Story

Jean my stepmother has advanced dementia, and has been supported by the team at Waterloo Park three days a week. In addition to the usual exceptional care she receives – she is given choice, she is given dignity and most importantly she is given empathy – the team at Waterloo Park may have recently given her the gift of life.

Jean’s deterioration has been huge in the last six months and the team have changed the care package as needed, such as 1-1 care at home time, as Jean can get on the wrong bus, manning the gate when she goes out for a cigarette, helping keep her safe when she wants to give out teas, taking her into the community which is not an easy task, and constantly reassuring Jean to stay at the centre when she is always trying to “pick her kids up ” or visit her (late) mother.

The team are great at adjusting her care package as her needs grow and change, but she still gets to smile when she is at Waterloo which is totally down to the total care of the staff.

Recently, Jean attended the day centre when she obviously wasn’t very well – she had been acting a little different which we as a family had noticed a couple of days before and we took to her GP and was told it was probably the side effects of her medicines.

Later that day I received an email off the manager of Waterloo Park, Michelle, using lovely caring words just making sure we were aware of the changes in Jean’s behaviour that the staff had noticed in one visit to the centre!! How on the ball is that?

A few days later, Jean again went to one of her sessions at Waterloo Park and became more unwell. She was vacant and shaking. The team alerted Francey the activity lead who knew straight away Jean was unwell and not herself.

Francey has a very good relationship with Jean, and she and another member of the Waterloo Park team, Lynn, took Jean to a quiet place for her own privacy.

Lynn believed she may have an infection based on her behaviour – by this time Jean couldn’t carry her own weight. Michelle made the decision to call an ambulance.

The whole team worked together to notice, to alert, to plan and to arrange care via NHS – and Francey made a caring professional call to myself to update the family.

Jean was taken to Aintree hospital where she was diagnosed with an infection and admitted.

Waterloo Park doesn’t specialise in dementia, but the care is second to none, they know Jean inside out and detected she was ill when her GP didn’t!!

The paramedics did suspect sepsis at one point and this is life threatening but rest assured if any resident at Waterloo Park is in any danger or risk the staff will assist to the highest level and give total quality of care.

I am eternally grateful to all the staff at Waterloo Park who don’t just do a job, they have a vocation to the people they support and as a family, we will never be able to repay them. Truly a huge thank you to each and everyone of them.

Christine's Story

After I retired as a Headteacher in a lovely primary school in Bootle I started to drive a pharmacy van delivering medicine and other supplies to care homes around Southport. Some were better than others; imagine my surprise when I found myself being supported following a leg amputation at one of the best ones I used to visit!

I came to Chase Heys on discharge from hospital after an emergency leg amputation – only just below the knee, but I think my horse riding days are behind me – and I knew it was the best place for me not only because of how I remember it from my van driving days but also from the immediately warm, friendly, and caring way the team welcomed me to their ‘home’.

A home which became my home for 16 weeks – although the great work of the team means most people’s stays are much shorter; I do like to be different!

I was at a very low ebb when I arrived at Chase Heys, and I don’t shy away from the fact I was indeed suicidal.

The pace of change really affected me, as it was only several days from seeing a GP to having the operation – removing a piece of me.

I know that the average stay at Chase Heys is a matter of days or at most a week or two as people get ready to go home after coming out of hospital. As I always like to be, I was different.

I had to wait for my prosthetic leg to be built, and I had a considerable amount of physiotherapy to undergo. But this extended stay quite probably saved my life, saved me from doing something that couldn’t be undone.

I am a firm believer in fate, and I think I was destined to come to Chase Heys to learn some lessons.

The first was that I was not alone. The team at Chase Heys was looking after lots of other people in similar situations as me – and having a great time doing it, both the staff and the people they were caring for.

I could have been a recluse, sitting alone in my room. Both staff and my peers encouraged me to emerge from my room and from then on I was hardly back, enjoying the company of new fast and firm friends.

The second was to accept, and indeed embrace, what had happened to me. I didn’t think I could cope with a missing leg, but the entire team really showed how resilient I could be.

Even the physical layout of Chase Heys played a part in my rehabilitation and my emotional wellbeing; I have been free to move around, both in the wheelchair and on my prosthetic, and have the biggest or smallest amount of space to explore that suits me at the time.

That sense of independence from being allowed to move throughout the building is unquantifiable.

I am safe at Chase Heys and I am looked after so incredibly well and I know I wouldn’t have been remotely as accepting of my situation anywhere else. But it is time to go home, back to my two dogs and my cat.

I have been away too long from them, but without the team at Chase Heys, I don’t want to think about how much longer it could have been for them.

Pam's Story

We are a short-term assessment service which is goals-led; we support and encourage people to become as independent, confident and capable as they were before whatever health emergency meant that they needed our help.

We are Reablement and Rapid Support, and I am proud to be a reablement worker in that team. I wanted to share what our team as a whole achieves for the hundreds of people who need our help every year.

The main reason for looking at what the team and I do lies with the nature of our service – we can support people from as little as a one-off visit or one to two-day sessions through to extended support while care packages are being put into place.

A person’s journey with Reablement and Rapid Support usually begins with a referral from our close colleagues in Sefton Council’s social care team.

They arrange with our Care Coordinators a plan of care following the person being supported either being discharged from hospital or from the community as part of hospital avoidance.

The next step on the road is to understand what the person in our care needs – and wants – and how their physical environment can help or hinder that progress.

This assessment, undertaken for the most part by our excellent team of Trusted Assessors, feeds into the completed care or goal plan.

Somebody once asked what my day was like, and I said ‘like no other’. Each day, even with the same person being supported, is unique and different.

In a nutshell, we offer a specialist service aimed at both helping people to recover from a health issue and to live a full life once again in their own home.

We break down what they want to do themselves and see how we can help them achieve those goals.

It could be as simple as making a cup of tea or prepare a meal in their own kitchen, or have assistance or support with showering. And some days they can do it, and some they can’t.

But we are there to provide holistic support regardless – on the days they can’t, I don’t automatically do it for them but I gently encourage and coax them to make that cup of tea, prepare that meal or have that shower.

Together, we have the same goal – to boost independence, confidence and the ability to manage on their own, in their own home. And to make them independent and proud of what they have achieved!

When they achieve their goals – however lofty or more basic – my job is done. I delivered an outcome that the person supported said they needed to achieve, and through that enabled someone to live independently, confidently and happily in their own home – a reablement achieved by a problem-solving, solutions-driven team alongside a willing partner, our supported person.

Intermediate Care & Reablement

Day Opportunities

Residential, short stay and respite

Shared Lives

Supported Living

Activities

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About Us

Our Philosophy

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Why New Directions?

Staff Stories

Your Benefits

Shared Lives

Living in the Community

Shared Lives offers an alternative and flexible type of accommodation, care and support for adults. We enable people to live in the community while being supported in a more normal and ‘real life’ environment.

About Shared Lives

Contact Details

Our Stories

Glenn's Story

James' Story

Thomas' Story

Sheila's Story

Judy's Story

Care Quality Commission

Shared Lives is a CQC registered service and has a ‘GOOD’ rating.

Contact Shared Lives

Glenn's Story

James' Story

New Directions is my full-time life – everything I do, the people I meet, the friends I have made and most importantly the independence and confidence I have now are all because of New Directions.

Thomas' Story

Sheila's Story

In 1986 B, social worker approached me and my husband Michael as we were registered foster carers.

Judy's Story

Before Shared Lives came to me, Dave and I we were supporting our special young lady at home from Friday to Sunday.

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James' Story

New Directions is my full-time life – everything I do, the people I meet, the friends I have made and most importantly the independence and confidence I have now are all because of New Directions.

Annie's Story

I never thought I would ever say a broken bone was a blessing…but if I hadn’t badly broken my leg and my old respite service couldn’t accommodate me, I would have never found Poplars!

Impacts & Outcomes

Continuous Transformation

Continuous Transformation

Continuous Transformation

Short Term Respite

Aintree Lane

Hudson Road

Poplars

James Dixon Court

Day Centres

North Hub

South Hub

Give Your Career a New Direction

Andy's Story

I would be dead by now without New Directions. Now, I am engaged to be married, about to move into supported accommodation (not 24-hour care like I have now) and most importantly I am now back in contact with my two amazing children again.

Hannah's Story

Jean's Story

As Told by His Mum

Ben's Story

I can’t believe that it’s nearly a year since I first met with Paula and her team at North Hub, part of Day Services at New Directions, to talk about Ben.

Pat's Story

We have our mum back, and it is both unbelievable and incredible.

Christine's Story

Pam's Story

We are a short-term assessment service which is goals-led; we support and encourage people to become as independent, confident and capable as they were before whatever health emergency meant that they needed our help.