Leeanne Drake is 37 and from Mintlaw. She cares for her nine-year-old son Finlay.
This is her story:
Leanne’s son Finlay is on the Autistic spectrum, has severe learning disabilities, ASD, global development delay, low muscle tone and epilepsy.
She cannot lead a normal life, everything evolves around her son and his wellbeing. Her son reacts violently to noises around him, he will hit out, he usually goes for his sister who attends primary school.
Her son hit a baby in a store one time because the baby was crying and it is noises like this that sets him off.
Leeanne has to constantly supervise her son and to avoid others getting hurt, it is near impossible for her son not to be exposed to noises especially when he is outside.
He does attend a special school full time, Westfield in Fraserburgh and is there Monday to Friday, 9am-3pm.
This allows Leeanne to work part time. She enjoys working as this is a good change and allows some social interaction with other adults.
She also gets respite most weekends, a carer comes and stays in the house which givers her a break, however sometimes she doesn’t want to leave her house at the weekend but feels that she really does want to have a break to be able to keep going.
She said she can never really relax, she has to keep an eye on her son constantly when he is home. He seems to be getting more violent as he gets older which worries Leeanne as he will be a teenager and adult one day. She is considering residential care in the future as she will not be able to cope.
Quarriers has worked with Leeanne now for a year and works with her other two children who are young carers by supporting them, visiting them at school, organising art as a therapy sessions, mindfulness and confidence building.
These sessions are planned and implemented by young carers family wellbeing workers who specialise in working with young carers.
Leeanne said it is like walking on egg shells looking after her son sometimes. She said that carers like her go above and beyond parenting really as you cannot enjoy and take simple things for granted as a mother, father, grandparent as it can be damage limitation most of the time and feels that they miss out on simple pleasures and able to relax most of the time.