Sarah’s Story

Sarah is 17 and was struggling to manage the pressures of year 11 GCSE’s along with being the eldest of 4 children and taking on a caring role for her younger sibling who has cerebral palsy.

Sarah described her life as ‘complete chaos’ and as well as studying for her GCSE’s she was taking on a large caring role at home for her sibling with cerebral palsy and was struggling to manage.

Sarah and I created revision timetables along with fitting in her other commitments, working at a hair salon and her caring responsibilities to allow her to organise and prioritise her daily tasks. Included in this was relaxation time and we focussed heavily on Sophie giving time for herself to socialise and relax to create a work/free time balance. Sophie explored coping strategies to manage her feelings and created tools to take home with her to use when she needs to.

Following her GCSE’s she started her A levels at college. Sophie would often not attend college if she was starting late and her sister was unwell. This was due to the college bus only going early on the morning and if her sister was unwell her mum was unable to drive her into college. Sophie did not have the confidence to use public transport to get to college on days her mum couldn’t take her due to her sister’s illness. We sourced which bus she needed to take and we went together to the closest bus stop and went up to college together on the public transport which then lifted this barrier of her not being able to get to college. We also applied for a young person’s bus pass which allowed her to get cheaper fares on public transport. Due to this Sophie was attending college more often and her caring role was less of a barrier.

By the end of her support Sarah’s emotional wellbeing had improved, she was talking more positively about her life and caring role. Sarah is now attending college and taking time to socialise with friends.