News
Volunteer families play host to people with disabilities
Caring for someone with a mental or physical disability can put a lot of strain on families and the individual alike. Thankfully, there are services operating in Galway which can lighten this workload somewhat.
The Home Share scheme was introduced to the county in 1985 and originally recruited families to provide support for children with disabilities for weekend breaks over the summer months.
BY MICHEÁL O’BRIEN
The programme is provided by voluntary organisation Ability West in partnership with the Brothers of Charity and has grown exponentially since its inception. There are now up to 80 families who offer regular support to people of all ages with mental and physical disabilities.
The scheme is broken up into three areas. Short breaks entails volunteer hosts – families, couples and individuals welcoming people with disabilities to their homes on a regular basis for short periods of time. This can be for a few hours a week, for weekend visits, or for longer holiday-type breaks.
Contract Home Sharing is an extension of this. Host families are required to provide rooms to individuals for a longer period – usually up to 16 nights a month. They can take a single guest for this period or may have a succession of guests to which they have been carefully matched.
The host family receives an annual payment and additional expenses based on the needs of the guest per night completed.
Shared living then is when volunteers offer full or part time accommodation to adults with disabilities, although there are limited opportunities for this in Galway as of yet.
Audrey Reilly, Respite and Community Services Manager with Ability West, says that the scheme centres around offering respite to families with a disabled member.
“The scheme gives the natural family of the disabled person a break and an opportunity to step out of their normal routine for longer periods of time. But it is also quite beneficial for the disabled person availing of our services as well. They are afforded a break from their family which helps them become more independent and form real friendships outside their next of kin.”
The organisation maintains that breaks which involve staying with a host family are universally considered to be much more socially inclusive than respite in traditional segregated services.
Those wishing to volunteer and host a disabled person must go through a bi-annual six week training course and undertake a rigorous vetting process.
“There is a lot of paperwork involved I will admit,” says Audrey. “The requirements to become a host are quite liberal, however. The host family does not have to be a man and woman with children. It can be either or, with children or without, employed or unemployed. All that is needed is home space, a genuine interest in helping and caring and being able to meet certain criteria.”
The organisation looks for what skills or experience a prospective volunteer might possess and how they may deal with certain crisis scenarios during the training course.
After the course is completed, volunteers partake in an assessment not unlike the one required for foster care and a social worker goes to their home to gauge what a family can offer and their own experiences if any with special needs.
Even children are spoken with to see if they would be okay with another child or adult coming to stay with them.
All of this information, as well as Garda clearance, medical records and the provision of three references, are collated by the social worker with their own reference and given to a panel made up of representatives within Ability West and the Brothers of Charity from which they can make their decision on the eligibility of a volunteer.
“Home share acts as a mediator then between host family and natural family. They match individual with special needs with the host family on the basis on what the individual’s needs and what the host family can provide. Things like house location, if the individual has transport needs, if the family has children and so on.
“Each party then is given a penned picture of the other; should they decide upon a match, they meet in a school or day centre and can usually tell from there if the arrangement is going to work or not. We reach a three way agreement and set up when the individual can stay with the host,” Audrey says.
The organisation provides support to the host family and individual then on matters such as wheelchair accessibility, sleeping, toilet, hygiene, education, religion needs. All avenues of difficulty are catered for – which is a testament to the experience and quality of the organisation.
Recently the practice guidelines for hosts were put in accessible book form and will be made on the website at www.abilitywest.ie in the near future. Those interested in the scheme can find more information there also.
Audrey herself is adamant about the merits of the programme. “The scheme provides something worthwhile and fulfilling for the volunteer host and the differently-abled person. Families receive companionship and a chance to make a difference to the lives of everyone in their households and that is truly worth pursuing.”
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
