190 Navigating Care for Aging Parents with Dr. Jackie Gray

Join me and Dr. Jackie Gray in our conversation about navigating care for aging parents. Dr. Jackie Gray is a retired GP and medical specialist in public health. She chats with me about the challenges and rewards of caregiving for aging parents, highlighting the importance of community support through her platform, Carents. And in this conversation, we talk about:

🌱 Understanding the Carents Community

🌱 The Identity of Carents

🌱 Challenges Faced by Carents

🌱 Navigating the Health and Social Care System

🌱 Addressing Loneliness and Isolation in Older Adults

🌱 Practical Challenges of Carents

🌱 Health Impacts of Care-giving

🌱 The Financial Burden of Care

🌱 The Positive Aspects of Care-giving

🌱 Community Support and Resources

If you’re looking for that extra bit of help or you want to get yourself prepped for the inevitable, this is for you.

DM me for the link or see link in bio or just search The Menopause Mindset episode 190

Dr. Jackie’s Links:

Website: https://carents.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarentsRoom

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carents_room

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity:  https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On Demand Masterclass 2 hours] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine 

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£447]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/rapid-transformational-therapist

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/sallygarozzomindmentor

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via What’s App - https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL1

Transcript

Sally (00:00.947)
So my guest today is Dr. Jackie Gray. Jackie is a medical specialist in public health. She's a retired GP and founder of Care-ence, the digital one-stop shop for anyone supporting an aging parent, relative or friend. Care-ence is a free UK wide platform with a rapidly growing and expanding community of around 40,000 adults. So Jackie, welcome to the podcast.

Jackie Gray (00:18.606)
Hi there Sally, thank you for having me. Lovely to be here.

Sally (00:33.413)
I'm so glad you said yes to this because I think it's such an important topic, especially for women going through the menopause and you know, people that listen to this podcast are all women going through the menopause who will have aging parents and maybe siblings or uncles and aunts, know, all sorts of family members. We do live in this aging society now, don't we? So what prompted you to set up care-ants, Jackie?

Jackie Gray (01:01.374)
gosh, there were so many prompts and I could go on for ages but the main thing was that I was fully aware of it from my clinical practice. I'd met a lot of, particularly women but not exclusively women, people going through very difficult times worrying about the people they loved.

and juggling work and family and just trying to navigate the whole health and care system. And then I had some personal experience and I thought, gosh, it is very tricky even for a specialist like myself. And it was happening to friends and neighbors, a lot of my own community. And I realized that because we've got this aging society, as you've mentioned, this longevity phenomenon.

that it was something quite new and I don't think society is really set up to cope and support people that are affected in that way. And so I just thought I had a lot of information from my personal experience, professional experience, background, and it just seemed such an obvious thing to make life easier for other people and begin to share it and bring people together who have the same shared experience. yeah.

Sally (02:13.095)
Yeah, lovely. It's such a worthwhile cause, it really is. And I'd love to find out more about what care-ants actually is. So you say it's a community, what is there within the community to really help and support people?

Jackie Gray (02:31.281)
Yes, so I started it off as a website, but then it kind of expanded and I've been since told that it's a platform because there's various elements to it. the website, karenstockco.uk is full of expert information that what I would think is the best in the UK that you can find. The experts, I've signposted, connected to that.

So it covers all the aspects of caring for somebody who's aging and all the different matters that you might come across. But then there's also information about looking after yourself because it's a really tricky time. There's information about us at Care & S, and then there's information about products and services that you might find helpful. So that's the website. And then further afield but still in the same digital space under the same digital umbrella, we've got private peer support groups.

and the private peer support groups, one's called Karens Lounge, one's called Karens Garden. The lounge is where people come together to discuss their aging parents. They loved the lounge so much, they being the members. They didn't want to leave, but obviously there is an end to this journey. They said, the community said, please can you create a Karens Garden so that we can continue to connect and support each other as the journey evolves.

And so that's another private support group too. And then we do a variety of multimedia activities as well. So there are webinars where we invite expert speakers to come and chat about specific topics that are relevant to the community. We do time to talk sessions where people can just get together and speak like we are now without it just being tap, tap, tap on the screen.

and then we do e-booklets, newsletters, that sort of thing. So it's kind of a one-stop-shop trying to bring everything together you might possibly need, but digitally rather than face-to-face.

Sally (04:33.607)
Yeah, yeah, because we need access to that information. It's so hard to get the right information for you and your locality, what might be available. But also I would imagine there's national things available as well. All sorts of things that we just don't have access to at the tip of our fingertips. Often they're sort of hidden under the surface and you have to know someone that knows someone. So.

Yeah, it sounds very worthwhile. How did you came up? How did you come up with the name Karen?

Jackie Gray (05:04.237)
Yes, I wasn't sure how that would go down, but the community seemed to love it. I was very conscious that there is support for people who are looking after family members out there, but it is organised by carer support organisations. Carers UK would be a typical example nationally. But I also knew through talking to people

in this situation that they didn't necessarily identify with the term carer. They didn't see themselves as carer. They didn't want to be a carer. But they did think that they were slightly different to a typical son or daughter. So they'd taken on new roles that didn't quite seem to gel with being a daughter. And some said...

Jackie Gray (05:53.213)
And so it just seemed to be caring for a parent, you know, it just came together as care and it just seemed to be a bit quirky, a bit lighthearted and a bit less stigmatizing than the term carer, which, and that seems to have gone down well with the community as I say, they seem.

Sally (06:13.885)
Yeah, yeah I like it. It's sort of like an identity isn't it that you can take on. You no longer feel, you don't want to be a carer but you no longer feel, you know you're, you no longer feel like a daughter anymore. It's like you're, you've become this different person you know that feels like they want to express gratitude and look after the people that have brought you into the world and you know make sure they have.

Jackie Gray (06:32.508)
That's good. Yeah, the community do seem to like it and I did recognize they needed a label to bring them together some sort of way of

Sally (06:43.713)
the most comfortable end of life or to help them get their needs met. And so I really like that term actually, I'm a care-ant.

Jackie Gray (07:01.379)
recognising and finding other people and information that was relevant to them. So we needed some sort of label that wasn't too far, you know, we could call people anything, but it had to be relevant and acceptable.

Sally (07:14.505)
And are there any similarities between the care-ants in terms of what they value, in terms of their mindset, in terms of like who they are as people? What do you see in your community?

Jackie Gray (07:29.572)
So I think caring and support and family matters are very personal, they? So there is diversity in the personal experience, the personal values, the personal relationships, but there are huge commonalities. people who are caring, and we think there are about four million in the UK, it's worth saying it's a huge phenomenon and growing all the time, but they tend to be middle-aged. So...

They typically are aged 50 to 65. There are some younger and there are some older, but the majority are in that age group. They tend to be more female than men, and that is borne out by all research into caring that women take on a bigger portion of the pie. Nationally, across all types of carers, it's about 60 % women, 40 % men in our own community. And that's possibly because...

women gravitate to community more or online community, but we've got probably more 70-30 in terms of 70 % women, 30 % men. You might assume that they're less likely to be in certain jobs or roles, but it covers every type of job. People are not necessarily likely to be unemployed or in a junior role or a senior role.

However, the experience of parenting does seem to affect their prospects at work and many do reduce their hours, retire early or actually change jobs to something less demanding so that they can juggle everything that they're doing. But otherwise, they're just people like you and me.

Sally (09:08.913)
Yeah, yeah, that really want to care for their aging parents. think it's, I mean, my mum and dad, my dad is nearly 90 actually now. He's doing really, really well, to be honest. He's still, he's got restless energy. He loves to keep going, keep moving, keep going on holiday as much as he can. He does make the most of life. My mum is 15 years younger. So she's, and she struggles to keep up with him actually, but...

Jackie Gray (09:28.312)
Thanks.

Sally (09:38.759)
You know, it's that feeling, isn't it, of like, it's coming. I know one day it's gonna come and to know that there are companies and organisations out there that can support you is actually really, like it makes me feel a bit more prepared, a bit more relaxed, less anxious about that time of life, that kind of impending, inevitable time of life. So yeah, it's really amazing what you're doing.

Jackie Gray (09:56.691)
I'm going a minutes to get hands dirty.

Sally (10:09.733)
When a parent, I want to kind get into some of the nuts and bolts really, but when a parent, when you suddenly realise that a parent can't live on their own anymore, can't fend for themselves anymore, what is usually the first port of call for someone?

Jackie Gray (10:28.286)
So if they've reached that stage, and I will say it's not always that obvious, it's often quite a slow winding journey where it might start with not being able to get to the shops and then it can evolve to not being able to leave the house altogether. But when somebody is really finding it difficult, maybe managing their own medicines, managing their personal care, bathing, getting in and out of bed, getting dressed.

then I think you really need to consider how to get external support. And there are two places to go and either will help. So you can also, you can go to your GP and I would say that as a retired GP. But GPs work very closely with social care services and they understand what the local opportunities are, local provisions. So, and they can refer you directly.

Or you can refer yourself directly to adult social care services where your parent lives. So the person you're concerned about, they will have a local council and within that council there will be adult social care services and they will be responsible for ensuring that the person who needs care gets the care or gets assessed for that care and then is told what sort of care options

might be available to them. The problems arise I think sometimes perhaps if a parent and a child, an adult child, are in different parts of the country because you don't necessarily know about the social services in another part of the country but everything's geared up to residents when it comes to local councils and it's very different locally so what happens in Newcastle could be very different to Birmingham in general but there are some national

rules about funding and what should be organised under the law really.

Sally (12:27.541)
Hmm, I see. Yes, that's very interesting. And in terms of the system, does the system function? Okay.

Jackie Gray (12:40.199)
Well, I think it's very variable. that would be easy for me to go yes or no. But really that would not tell the whole story. And I think the whole story is that it is variable. And it is very different, say in Birmingham or Manchester, Newcastle, London, because it is down to local councils and local council budgets and local council leadership and local council staffing. So there is huge variation.

Sally (12:45.918)
Hmm.

Sally (12:59.112)
I see.

Jackie Gray (13:10.214)
People, when it works, it's great, but when it doesn't work, that's the problem. And the problem appears to be a lack of integration between health and social care. So health services saying one thing, social services saying another. So that is a barrier and it can be quite fragmented. The second problem appears to be waiting times or waiting lists. So we know about waiting lists on the NHS. They're always in the news, aren't they?

But similarly, if you've got this person who is finding it difficult to live alone and independently, they won't necessarily, unless there's an emergency or an emergency, perhaps a discharge from hospital, they can't necessarily get assessed the day that you want it to happen. There is also a list for that and that can vary and it can be months in some parts of the country. And then when it comes to finding the services to support that person, that might be services in their home.

or they might choose to go into some sort of long-term living arrangement elsewhere, an institution like a care home or a nursing home. Well then that depends on availability too. And Age UK have done reports on this. They've recognised that in some parts of the country they call them care deserts, where there just is not the services that people need. So it is very variable, unfortunately. So that's roundabout way saying the system can work well.

And it does work well for some, but not for everybody all the time.

Sally (14:37.787)
I see, yeah, thank you for clearing that up. Do people often get left, like people that don't have children, people that don't have family, people that, you know, know, older people that have really become very isolated? I mean, it's such a tragic thing to think about, but, you know, you hear of these stories and you kind of sense that...

that actually as we get older people do become more isolated and it just breaks my heart you know when you think of someone going into hospital getting discharged and then not having anyone to look after them they don't actually really have the capacity to to even kind of make a call if they need to or let alone knowing who to call so i mean is that quite common do you think

Jackie Gray (15:25.689)
So I don't have statistics on that but I do know that loneliness and isolation is very common in older people so what you're describing there is common. Also common is digital exclusion so a lot of older people don't have Wi-Fi in the home so if you're looking for help you and I might automatically look on the internet and find the number for our local council or

Sally (15:32.263)
Yeah.

Jackie Gray (15:51.352)
check into a podcast and work out how you do that. But an older person without Wi-Fi and without that digital capability, which they might have had, but might have diminished if they're losing capacity, they won't be able to do that. not only are they isolated from family, friends, neighbours, people that can help and champion on their behalf, they're isolated from the whole of society really and the help that's available. So it is a problem.

and it is distressing for everybody to witness that and it's very, sad and often those individuals may end up in A &E as an emergency because a neighbour, a milkman, a paper person, a delivery mail person might have realised that there is a problem afoot or they have managed to call 999 for help.

Sally (16:43.527)
Yeah, okay. What do you see the solution being for loneliness and isolation? Do you have any thoughts around that at all?

Jackie Gray (16:53.611)
And for old people themselves, I think it is a real tricky matter. think loneliness is a complex topic. And when we talk about loneliness, it's the feeling, isn't it? You'll understand this. The feelings of loneliness, you can feel lonely in a crowd, whereas isolation is that lack of contacts. And I think older people are struggling with both often. So there is that lack of contact. But then there's a lot of loss.

which is tied up in feelings of making contact. So a lot of their role in society. There's a lot of potential ageism in society, a lot of interests. So if you're housebound, if you're losing your hearing, losing your sight, hobbies, social interactions, entertainment, all becomes very difficult. So it's a vicious circle really, isn't it?

Sally (17:50.505)
Hmm.

Jackie Gray (17:51.564)
And so I think we need to really grapple with this. We need to say, how are we going to do it? Because one short-term solution are befriending schemes. Those exist in areas of the country that tend to be charities. There's a national helpline called Silverline. You can phone the Silverline and speak to somebody just informally, just socially. It's not, they're not going to send help. They're simply to talk.

There are charities like Age UK that do visiting schemes. I've come across pet visiting schemes, so a charity, WAG it's called. They have dogs that go and visit older people at home and obviously make friends with the dog, but also the dog owner. So these schemes exist, but it's not getting to the root of the problem of why loneliness and isolation occurs.

and as society goes forward, really are going to have to grapple with that issue about digital isolation and whether we need more intergenerational living. That's an option too. There are schemes called home share schemes. They come under different titles, but basically if you've got a home, you can open it up to a younger person. They pay rent at a reduced fee. So you've got...

company, that's way of doing it. But it's not an easy one at all and it's going to take a long time I think to put right.

Sally (19:19.751)
Yeah, it really is. Thank you for your insights there. Actually, you're talking about intergenerational living. My neighbour across the hall, she's an older lady and she's got her son's girlfriend who's in her twenties living there. Yeah, it's really quite sweet actually. And at first I was like, my God, that's really odd. But now you've mentioned it.

Jackie Gray (19:33.391)
That's nice. Yeah.

Sally (19:42.641)
I actually think, no, that's really, really useful. And, you know, she's got me across the hall, which is really nice. But yeah, I love that. I'm actually thinking myself of doing some volunteering and helping older elderly people because it breaks my heart when I see them, you know, tottering down the street or whatever. And I do wonder what their life story is. You know, there's these people who we kind of.

Jackie Gray (19:57.257)
Thank

Jackie Gray (20:04.841)
I'm going be talking about the importance of importance importance of of of of the the the importance of importance the importance importance importance of importance of importance importance of of of of of importance importance importance of importance of

Sally (20:09.789)
who tend to be like cast out or not given a second look, know, just that, they're an old person. I don't want anything to do with them or whatever. We've got nothing in common. Actually, under the surface, they have such rich stories to tell.

And they're just sort of, I was like waiting to be heard, waiting to come out. I remember my granddad, when he was in the old people's home, couldn't shut him up. You know, he was so, he just really, really wanted to tell all of his war stories and what life was like back then. And you know, they're so funny with their anecdotes and they're so unpolitically correct as well, saying things that you're really not supposed to say today, but obviously they're not aware of it and they're just operating.

in their own kind of world. yeah, I love that. what, getting back to Karens, because I want to really plug it for you. What are the main practical challenges that you see Karens experiencing?

Jackie Gray (21:04.66)
Okay.

Jackie Gray (21:15.785)
So practically they are trying to fill the gaps that their parent, their loved one cannot fill themselves. So typically when an older person loses those functions for want of a better word, that is the technical term, they lose functional ability. There are typical things that they have to do and those tasks

fall into keeping a house, keeping yourself in order, eating, sleeping, all those essential things. But it is more practical things like just simply using a telephone. And that can become quite challenging if you're losing functional ability. It's being able to do all the administration, deal with the post, dealing with the bills, utility providers.

finding the right one and then documents, making decisions about important things like what care you really want, taking medicines at the right time, in the right way, in the right combinations and calling for help when you need it and then staying safe, recognising that you might be vulnerable to other pressures that you and I might be more resistant to so more likely to fall in later life, you're more likely to

come to cold temperatures in the home. So all of these more likely to get an infection. So vaccination is really important. So what a caret is doing is actually all of those things every day, if necessary, or thinking about them, checking in on them. So that's all that practical stuff on top of everything else they're doing in their own life. And they often end up running two homes. They're chauffeurs, personal assistants, digital technicians.

maintenance managers, utility organisers, you name it, they're doing all of those practical jobs and it can be really tricky, especially at a distance if there's travel involved.

Sally (23:17.159)
Yeah, do you often find that care-ants move in with their parents or vice versa to sort of ease that load?

Jackie Gray (23:25.09)
Yeah, increasingly members of our community are describing that. So they're either moving into the parents' home or vice versa, as you say. And sometimes both parents will come. And on the whole, that tends to be a variable experience for everyone involved. I think it's difficult for both parties, frankly. I think it becomes more difficult when it's in-law. So when you haven't got that long-term relationship with the parent and it's a mother-in-law or a father-in-law.

that tends to be a more tricky relationship to navigate, shall we say.

Sally (23:59.059)
Yeah, of course. Yeah, and also with homes being so expensive as well, I would imagine that people are, know, if they... Because there's that gap, isn't there? You know, if you don't have any money, the state will pay for it. But if you do have a bit of money, you could afford it, but it's so expensive.

Jackie Gray (24:09.316)
So it does depend on the home and the facilities and the area. Further down south they seem to be a lot more expensive, up north cheaper.

Sally (24:22.729)
You know, we're talking like £3,000 a week to put someone into a care home or something like that. I don't know what the prices are. Do you know what the prices are?

Jackie Gray (24:39.043)
A kind of ballpark price would be £1,000 a week. That's probably on the cheaper side. So you're looking at about £50,000 £60,000 a year really to pay for a care home. It's more expensive if you need nursing care or specialist dementia care. Yeah, it is not for a small budget really. And as you say, in England you will get financial support. It will all be done.

Sally (24:49.992)
Thank

Sally (24:53.949)
Hmm.

Jackie Gray (25:08.034)
paid by the state. If your own savings and property it takes into account the value of your own home it has to be beneath £23,500 in England. It's not a great deal if you own your own home. So about 50 to 60 percent in the country pay for their own care and the remainder are paid by the state. It seems to be half and half.

Sally (25:31.785)
It's a huge amount of money to, you know, my mum supplemented my granddad's care. I think we rented his house out so we had that income and then my mum supplemented the shortfall and that was the way that we did it. But yeah, mean, it's, yeah, I don't know how people afford it to be honest. Okay, so take a breath.

Yeah, what are, so care-ants are juggling two households often and it must be a huge burden, especially if they've got children as well. We always talk about the sandwich generation at Menopause. From your point of view with what you're seeing in your communities, what kind of health impacts does this juggling tend to have?

Jackie Gray (26:22.6)
it's huge and it's borne out by evidence. There's been research into the needs of people who are providing family care.

and it's shown that they have worse health outcomes than others, their contemporaries, shall we say. It's a determinant of health, it's a known thing. So they're more likely to experience physical problems and emotional mental health problems as well. And we see that all the time in our community. The emotions are run very high. And as you can imagine, it's feelings of exhaustion, of stress, of feeling overwhelmed, frustration, and a lot of grief.

as well, even though their parent is still alive, they're dealing with that sense of loss and that loss is borne out with all the emotions that you might expect. Sometimes the anger, the denial, the bargaining, the depression and it takes a long time to reach acceptance, particularly when you're in a changing situation and there is a constant decline there.

Sally (27:26.525)
Yeah, it's so hard. It's so hard. And we've been speaking a lot about the negatives and obviously it is. It's a challenging situation. But from your point of view, do you see any benefits of care and ting?

Jackie Gray (27:46.312)
Absolutely, and I'm pleased you said that because it is easy to focus on the negatives. And of course in a community where people are using it as a way to offload and share their difficulties, we're going to be much more emphasis on the negatives. But there are multiple positives. And I think there's positives for all the family, even the children that we talk about the sandwich care, but seeing compassion in action, seeing...

humanity in action, seeing how you can support somebody for who is vulnerable, how you can protect them, how you can demonstrate love. These are amazing gifts to give to your children. So there's the gift to the people that see this in action. There's the gift for the person that receives all that compassion and care and support. But that's a gift to you. Again, you'll be aware the evidence shows that giving care and giving compassion

is equally as beneficial as receiving it. It's a mutual thing. So you've got all of those benefits to your mental health in terms of compassion, connection. And I think if you can find meaning in what you're doing and satisfaction, then it is immensely rewarding. And it's also an opportunity for self-discovery and self-transformation because you are, if you are challenged, then you need to understand what it is that's challenging you.

Is it a fear of mortality? Is it the juggling? Do you need to learn new coping strategies for this new stage of life? And it's an opportunity also to prepare for your own future, isn't it? You're confronted with what might happen in future years. But you've got the benefit of living it through somebody else and seeing it. And so it's an opportunity to put things in place that perhaps you hadn't thought of before.

to think about the paperwork, to think about what you want to say to your family and how you want to be cared for in the future as well. So I think there are massive benefits that could have repercussions for the whole of society if we all became more compassionate and valued vulnerability for what it gives to all of us really. But I think it's a message that's hard to say to people who are literally tearing their hair out with exhaustion.

Sally (30:09.659)
Yeah, of course, because there's that vicarious trauma, isn't there, that compassion fatigue. And whilst we whilst we can muster up some compassion, I guess, and some gratitude and shift our mindset to find the meaning, actually, if we burn out, it's really hard to find that. But I do love that positive spin. And I think perhaps if we can prepare ourselves, you know, tapping into that, that

Jackie Gray (30:15.13)
Mmm.

Jackie Gray (30:28.922)
Absolutely.

Sally (30:37.673)
optimism rather than pessimism. Because I think as a society, we're so tuned into death being like absolutely awful and something to obviously we want to avoid it, but the proximity of death, you know, being absolutely awful and can't be around people that are dying, you know, I don't want it to mess with my vibe and, and all this, but, but actually we can, I get this sense of it softening the soul, you know,

Jackie Gray (30:41.037)
Okay.

Jackie Gray (30:53.946)
Mm.

Jackie Gray (31:05.658)
That's a lovely way of putting it. Yeah, I like that.

Sally (31:09.091)
softening the psyche, softening the mind, like we are confronted with very, very difficult feelings in those moments where we're witnessing our parent not be able to fend for themselves anymore. And so we can't avoid them any longer. And I think.

many people don't actually know how to deal with those feelings that are coming up. The grief, the loss, the change, the just seeing a parent be so vulnerable and the sadness, the huge sadness that that can bring up, especially as the tables start to turn, know, recognising that you are the adult now. You are coming to terms with that idea, I no longer have a parent.

Jackie Gray (31:40.994)
Thanks.

Absolutely.

Jackie Gray (31:57.688)
Yeah, I think it's a rite of passage, actually. Yeah, absolutely. And that's not something we talk about much in our society, is it? But I do think that exactly what you said, that you go in as a child, as a daughter, and you come out the other side as a well-formed adult, hopefully. Or there is that opportunity. But those difficult emotions.

Sally (32:00.819)
See you.

Sally (32:17.992)
Yeah.

Jackie Gray (32:25.109)
I think what's important is the community that we've created because if you're not aware that other people are feeling the same way, there is that challenge of, I unusual? Is this normal? What can I expect? Does it get better? Does it get worse? How do other people juggle? Is it me that's not coping? Is there something fundamentally wrong with me? All of those questions come into the community. And one of the most common observations

I am so pleased I found you. I've been feeling so lonely and now I don't. Now I realise that everything I've been experiencing is so common and also there is often a bit of humility as well when people realise others are actually in more challenging circumstances. Not that it's ever a competition, is it? But it can help to give perspective and see that perhaps you're not alone.

your situation is as bad as anyone else's, but people do survive and get through it, and that's always heartening too, isn't it?

Sally (33:29.339)
Yeah, it really, really sounds like such a worthwhile community. Is there, is it a free community? Is there a cost to join?

Jackie Gray (33:38.697)
Now everything is free, everything we provide, the webinars, the booklets, the community, the website, so all free at the point of access and there's no hidden costs. We're not going to phone you up in a month's time and say, you've been using us. No, there's no money over the counter like that. The support comes from the businesses that support us. I did say that we have a product section and obviously there's a cost to businesses because they can afford it.

Whereas individuals in difficult circumstances, as I've said, shouldn't be juggling with other matters like this.

Sally (34:14.515)
What a beautiful cause, like I'm tingling all over. I just feel that this is amazing and I am definitely going to be using care and when my time comes, which selfishly is partly the reason why I wanted to chat to you as well.

Jackie Gray (34:32.565)
Okay.

Sally (34:34.217)
Yeah, but I really, really hope that people listening to this episode will decide to come and see if they still have their parents and decide to come and see, know, care-ants and the website and join the community because it sounds so worthwhile. Jackie, can you let us know what's your website? Are you active on social media anywhere?

Jackie Gray (34:59.876)
We're all over. So the website is carence.co.uk and on the website you'll find lots of calls to action in terms of signing up for our newsletter which will then take you to our communities quite easily. But we're also on social, we're on the main social media channels that you would imagine and more beyond. The main topic uses either carence or carenceroom. So if you search for either of those

Parents is an unusual term as we've heard and if you search for that on the internet it should be one of the first things that comes up and those links should take you there.

Sally (35:37.545)
That's perfect, brilliant. Thank you so much. This has been awesome and I cannot wait to share your work with the world. So thank you so much, Jackie.

Jackie Gray (35:39.589)
it.

Jackie Gray (35:46.547)
Thank you Sally, thank you so much for allowing me to share and hopefully reach more people who we can help. So thank you so much.

Sally (35:59.549)
That's all right, you're welcome.