Supporting long-term carers with compassion and flexibility

Created by VERCIDA for Department for Work and Pensions

Stephen has been a carer for multiple family members. For Parents and Carers Month, he shares how the DWP has helped him balance work and personal responsibilities.

After I left college, I trained as a lifeguard, but I ended up looking for an office job. In 2008, I joined the civil service, starting at a contact centre for HMRC. I even won HMRC’s 2015 Sportsman of the Year award after winning my swimming races in an internal civil service competition.

By the time I left HMRC in 2016, I’d moved into project work. My early roles with DWP were very varied, such as change management, business management roles and Senior Civil Service recruitment, and today I’m a pay and reward advisor. Everyone has to get paid and you never know what queries employees might have, so every day is certainly different.

I started taking on caring responsibilities when I was working at HMRC. I became my grandmother’s carer when she had Alzheimer’s disease. Caring for my family members is something that has continued into my time at DWP and I have always had supportive employers and line managers during my time with the civil service.

After starting with the DWP in Birmingham, my mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and I was her carer, taking her to hospital and chemotherapy appointments. Thankfully, she recovered, but while she was undergoing treatment, it was really helpful to be working in a role that was close to home. I was given the flexibility I needed to manage my mother’s care, while enjoying my new role with DWP as it offered more experience. 

In 2018, our daughter Maddison was born. My wife had a difficult pregnancy, suffering really badly from hyperemesis, so I needed to be there for her when she was unwell. Maddison had sepsis as a newborn, so that was another challenge. She has since been diagnosed with  Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which is a condition she has inherited from me. It causes nerve damage, muscle weakness and numbness. Maddison is doing really well, but we don’t know what the future might hold for her.

My wife had another difficult pregnancy, as well as giving birth to our daughter Imogen by emergency C-section in 2020. The experience left her with serious postnatal depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and she needed so much support from me during this time. Again, DWP was brilliant in allowing me to work flexibly and take time off whenever I needed it.

I’m pleased to report that my wife is back at work – she works for DWP roo – and she has since been diagnosed with autism. This has been a really important turning point for her. So many things make so much more sense now and the DWP has been really supportive, especially with the reasonable adjustments she needs to perform well at work and raising awareness about neurodiversity in the workplace.

Now, I’m caring for my mum again. She has dementia, which has progressed rapidly over the past three years, as well as macular degeneration, which affects her eyesight. It made sense for her to move in with us. I’m her main carer, so I am very glad to have an understanding workplace. One of the great initiatives that DWP has introduced to help people in situations like mine is the Carer’s Passport. This document moves with you when you change jobs and it outlines, especially to line managers, the flexibility carers might need to be able to manage all their responsibilities.

Balancing work and personal responsibilities can be a challenge, but DWP has been a great employer. I have been able to care for people who are close to me when they are going through some tough times – and I continue to do so today with my mum – while still having a rewarding and interesting career at DWP.