Carers Rights Day: Meet Jana, Pastoral Care Facilitator at Sheffield Children’s, Mum and carer

At Sheffield Children’s, we aim to support our colleagues who are also working as carers as much as we can. We recently set up a Carers Network for our colleagues to connect, support each other and share stories. 

Meet Jana, Pastoral Care Facilitator at Sheffield Children’s, Mum and carer to her daughter. We had a chat with Jana to see what it’s like being a working carer as part of Carers Rights Day.

Hi Jana! What’s your role at Sheffield Children’s?

“Hello! I work as Pastoral Care Facilitator for International Nurse Recruitment and Retention Team. I support the Pastoral Care and wellbeing of our new internationally educated nurses.”

Who do you care for outside of work?

“Outside of my work roles, I care for my teenage neurodivergent daughter.” 

Can you tell us how you manage to juggle your responsibilities between caring and your employment?

“Juggling multiple responsibilities is a daily challenge. I keep reminding myself to take one day at the time and one step at a time especially when multiple challenges might seem overwhelming.

“I paint sometimes; painting and creativity helps me to refocus and balance competing priorities and challenges of work, life, caring responsibilities and my own health challenges and disabilities. It can be so easy to rush and push myself from one activity to another and lose focus on the values that matter.

“I love my job, it’s still new to me and I am thankful for the excellent support from my manager and my colleagues. I am gradually exploring options for flexible working to balance the combination of my caring responsibilities, my disabilities and my job role that I find deeply meaningful and life-giving.

“Writing these answers, I reflected on questions and painted a new picture about taking One Day at a Time.”

Where do you recommend that other carers look to find information that can help them?

“There’s lots of places that can help you –

• NHS Employers has put together some guidance for working carers
• There’s a digital resource for carers on the Carers UK website – you just need an access code from either your employer or your local council
• You can join the Sheffield Carers Centre for free and take advantage of the information they provide. They have an advice line, offer support and provide a list of services and information specifically for carers.”