'Having a finger to squeeze is sometimes not enough'
But for Oli it is!
Here Grauntie Susie supplies the helping finger for Oli  in the middle of the local village Easter fete, April  2013

Conductors, our present services and what more we might offer

I have written before about the importance of discussing with potential clients what they need and what services I am able to offer them.

If I am able offer them the service that they are after I will do so, if not I will try to find someone who can.

I have met so many parents who rarely go out without their disabled children, or at all, because of difficulties in finding people willing and able to babysit. Oh, how I wish that I had could have passed some of these on to someone like Natalie Sanchez who is now offering a service that from my experience is very much needed everywhere. I expect that it will be welcomed with open arms in the region where she lives. She has a new website where she offers ‘Special needs babysitting’ –

 http://nataliesanchez.co.uk/

I have recently been thinking about how conductors could fill another gaping hole in services provided, not only for people with a disability, but also the elderly and also those recovering from operations or illnesses, or returning home after long spells in hospital.

I see an opening for a service that could perhaps be described as ‘conductive living’, as opposed to Natalie’s wonderful concept of special-needs, or conductive, baby-sitting.

A conductor could ‘live’ for a few hours a week in the home of for example a post-stroke patient, or a post-carpal tunnel operation patient, or someone newly bereaved  and suddenly living alone. The conductor could be the one who helps to bring sparkle back into lives, the one who motivates activities by saying – ‘Come on, don’t you think it is time to start doing the ironing again?’, or ‘How about trying to bake your favourite cake today?’ or ‘Should we get out in the garden and get the bed dug for the chrysanthemum cuttings?’

With so much talk about cuts in welfare services there seems to me to be a potential market opening up, especially in the UK for something along these line.

I for one will be thinking about working along these lines when I am too old and creaky to crawl around on my hands and knees after three-year-olds.