Mothers launch podcast to help disabled child carers

A MOTHER from Wargrave has launched a podcast to help carers of disabled children.

Jane Holmes, 55, of Blakes Road, has started Let’s Take Care alongside her friend Melissa Paulden, both mothers to adult children with cerebral palsy, to offer emotional support for parent carers.

The podcast provides an honest exploration of what it means to care for a lifetime and still find the strength to fight, love and keep going.

Mrs Holmes wanted to pass on parenting knowledge to others, having experienced difficulties to enrol her daughter Kitty, now 23, into special education and fighting for her to receive extra support from charities.

Mrs Paulden, 51, from Sandhurst also has a daughter, Tia Ruel-Urry, 28, who has experienced similar difficulties financially and within the council system to access support.

In each episode, they look to validate and acknowledge the experience of carers and provide practical advice to other parents on how to survive the mental and emotional impact of lifelong caring.

Mrs Holmes said: “Melissa and I have worked together for years and we both felt like we had a lot that we could pass on to other parents who could just be starting out on their journey with a disabled child and to tell our story.

“A lot of people who know us don’t realise what our life is actually like. We thought it was very important to give the uncut version and the raw, honest truth of what we and our children go through to get what they need.

“Kitty is severely disabled. She is non-verbal and a wheelchair user and she uses a communication aid to talk.

“She needs full-time care 24 hours a day but she’s very bright and inquisitive.

“Going through the special educational needs and disability education system has been a huge adventure.

“It’s very often a difficult fight just to get the basics and people don’t realise that, for families with disabled children, it’s not all handed to us on a plate. We had to fight for pretty much everything with Kitty.”

Kitty, whose hobbies include maths, swimming and tricycling, has recently completed an access course with the Open University, achieving 91 per cent in her coursework.

She will now go on to study maths, science and engineering there, which is expected to take her six years.

Mrs Holmes said enrolling her in senior school was a “relentless fight” costing the family hundreds of pounds to fund private medical reports.

She said: “It can be soul-destroying and just exhausting.

“I can remember fighting for her to have a pair of specially adapted shoes for months and, eventually, you get what you need or you just give up and realise that you’ve got to choose your battles.

“This is all alongside caring for a disabled child ad trying to earn a living and trying to keep a house going and trying to keep up with friends and family.

“We want to tell people about that but also reach out to those families who are going through the same and tell them they’re not alone.”

The friends’ first episode aired last month and introduced Jane and Melissa’s stories, with the theme “We were shocked — but thankful — they survived. And they continue to amaze us every day”.

Mrs Holmes is the chief executive of charity Building for the Future, which was set up by a group of mothers with disabled children in 2007 in a bid to raise enough money to open a specialist, accessible and inclusive community centre.

It is operated from an office in Twyford, where the pair also record the podcast. So far it has been downloaded more than 100 times and has reached listeners as far as Europe and Russia.

She hopes listeners will feel comfortable to phone in or reach out for support.

Mrs Holmes said: “We are a little community of our own. Because support often costs money, the services aren’t always forthcoming in telling you about it so that’s something we want to address.

“We can say from experience, ‘this is what we did and we found this helps’ or ‘this is what we did and it was a mistake’. It’s a riding message that they’re not alone.”

Mrs Paulden said she realised the importance of looking after her own wellbeing as a carer after a breast cancer diagnosis in 2023, which was caught early and successfully treated.

The show is part of her mission to “break the cycle of burnout, speak honestly about the toll caring can take, and remind carers everywhere — your health matters too”.

Let’s Take Care is available on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.