‘One of the users used to call me ‘Big Knees’: Woman celebrates 25 years at Preston care charity
“I think the guys have just really helped me be me.”
Spending 25 years caring for others would be an achievement for anybody.
But for Caritas Care’s Jenny Sisson, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
After more than two decades caring for vulnerable people both young and old, Jenny said she was “already looking forward to the next 25 years”.
Having first started off in children’s care, Jenny now works as an assistant manager in Caritas Care’s Vision in People (VIP) day centre, where she arranges activities and socials for learning-disabled adults in Preston.
“My role is to organise all the fun stuff,” Jenny told the Lancashire Evening Post. “We do things like cycling, sewing, cooking, going to the gym… every day there’s loads of stuff on for service users to enjoy.
“We look at what hobbies they have and try to sculpt it around them, so it’s very person-centred. It’s a vibrant place, and it really is an extension of our family.
“The youngest now is 19, and the eldest is 64. And he won’t retire because he loves it here, he’s like the patriarch. The average age is around mid-30s, and the few that are arriving right now are all youngsters. They’ve left six form and left further education, and they’re now coming to us and we’ll be with them for the next part of their lives.”
The Caritas Care charity has been taking care of vulnerable people for 90 years.
As well as its day centre services, the charity also provides adoption and fostering services across Lancashire, as well as homelessness support.
More than 55 people use the VIP day centre each day on average.
In the UK, more than 1.5 million people are classed as learning-disabled. Nearly half of those who get support (47.6 per cent) do so in community settings such as Caritas Care.
Research collated by the government found that disabled people with intellectual disabilities were less likely to be given the opportunity to take part in common household tasks due to safety concerns from family members.
It also found that people frequently had their identities reduced entirely to their disability, and denied opportunities to act with autonomy.
According to Jenny and colleague Bev Stevenson, the service gives its visitors a vital opportunity to be independent.
“We have a woman in her 50s, and every day, we might hear ‘I can’t do that, my father doesn’t let me do that’. I say, ‘Well, your father’s not here’.
“It’s very funny because the parents ring us and we’ll send them pictures of their children hoovering and things like that, and they’ll say, ‘How did you get them to do that?’. They have to do it here because we work as a team.”
“You don’t go into care work for the money, you go into care because you care,” Bev said. “You’ve got empathy and understanding and compassion for people who aren’t as able as yourself.
“You want to give them a voice, to continue giving them opportunities to learn. My experience in the past is that they’d go to a centre where they play bingo or do jigsaws, but they can do so much more. The sky is the limit.
Now looking ahead, Jenny said she and the team are preparing a range of new activities for those who use the Caritas Care service, particularly for the run up to Christmas.
“It gets really busy this time of year,” she said. “Even though it’s not Christmas yet, we have to start preparing for it.
“Father Christmas is already booked because we have a Christmas party, which is very, very important. I’m working on the drama group and trying to get them a hall so they can do their performance. It all starts to get a bit intense at this time of year.
“But it’s the actual services users and staff who have kept me going,” she continued. “Even if you’ve had a really tricky day at home, or something’s happened that week, you walk in that door and they make you smile.
“One of the service users always used to call me ‘big knees’: I jumped in the car once and the steering wheel knocked my knees, and I’m quite a short person. The service user was shorter than me and he was laughing, and he went ‘Don’t worry Jenny, you’re not short, you’ve just got big knees’.
“That joke has lasted for about ten years. He taps my knees and says, ‘How is Big Knees?’, and I always have to ask how ‘Little Knees’ is doing. It’s so wonderful that we can have that relationship.
“Things like that keep you going through all the things that you face through life, knowing that you’ve got that closeness with them.
“I think the guys have just really helped me be me.”