Family carers provide a crucial source of support for people living with dementia. However, the invaluable contributions that carers make to the lives of people with dementia can go unrecognised by the broader community.
Through the Sharing is Caring project at the University of Tasmania, we have captured the stories of family members who are providing care for a loved one who is living with dementia. While being a family carer can be challenging, it can also be rewarding, and every carer’s experience is unique. The family members who participated in our project are passionate about sharing their experiences to raise community awareness about the ordinary and extraordinary moments of being a carer of someone living with dementia.
This project was conducted in partnership with Clarence City Council (Tasmania) and Kiama Municipal Council (New South Wales) and received funding from the University of Tasmania Community Engagement Scheme. The research team comprised Dr Sharon Andrews, School of Nursing, College of Health and Medicine, UTAS and Dr Helen Courtney-Pratt and Professor Fran McInerney from the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre, UTAS.
In this project we used a co-creation approach to capture stories from primary caregivers. The researchers met regularly with carers in Tasmania and New South Wales; and each meeting was audio-recorded.
Based on carer’s stories the first meeting the researcher developed a draft narrative and this was returned to the carer prior to the next meeting.
The carer then worked with the researcher over subsequent meetings to further develop and refine their narrative. The final narrative was complete when the family caregivers were satisfied that it adequately captured their experiences and the ways in which they found meaning in their role.
The production of the digital stories and videos were made possible by working in collaboration with age friendly and dementia friendly local councils and the generous participation of family caregivers with these communities.
Share Your Story
If you would like to share your story about being a caregiver of a person living with dementia, we’d love to hear from you. Let us know what you would like to share. There's a form at the link below.