Date published: October 13, 2022
Awards 2022: Lee Dowling and Chris Citrine are this years Shared Lives Champions
Lee Dowling and Chris Citrine are the winners of this year’s Shared Lives champion awards. The winners of this award are recognised for the excellent work they do spreading the word about Shared Living in their communities. This award is generally given to an individual, though it only felt right this year that Lee and Chris won the award together. Chris is a carer for the PSS scheme in Liverpool and him and his partner Jenny support Lee in a Shared Lives arrangement.
Chris is new to social care and until recently had worked as a lorry driver. Quite the career change! Chris and Jenny’s neighbour works as a Shared Lives carer and played a big role in convincing Chris and Jenny to welcome someone into their home.
Lee has been a member of the PSS scheme for nearly fifteen years. Most of this time was spent with his carer Pauline who has sadly passed away. Chris and Jenny were suggested to Lee and in September 2020 Lee moved in with them.
The pair get on like best mates and are constantly bantering each other, a large proportion of which is jokes about eithers football team. Chris is a red and Lee is a blue, a divide seen in households across Merseyside.
Since pairing together Lee & Chris have become a major part of PSS’s promotion of Shared Lives. Lee is very enthusiastic about sharing his story on how living in a Shared Lives home has helped him. He is very honest about the difficulties and challenges he faced earlier in his life and how being supported in Shared lives has allowed him to make changes, giving him confidence to enjoy his life again. Chris is able to discuss the decision to change his career and articulate how this has enhanced his life.
“It’s surprising how many people don’t know about Shared Lives and what we can provide.” Says Chris.
“There’s people that need help, and the more that me and Chris or whoever else does it (promotion), the more it will get out there” adds Lee.
They are both totally committed to promoting Shared Lives and are willing to meet national and local politicians at very short notice. They were part of a Radio Merseyside broadcast that helped promote Shared Lives. They also recently attended the NHS Confed-expo event in Liverpool to promote Shared Lives at the Shared Lives Plus stand. However, their attempts to track down and speak to then health secretary Sajid Javid were unsuccessful.
“He heard about me and he was scared and done a runner.” Jokes Lee.
However, it is their down to earth nature and ability to communicate what Shared Lives is in a relatable way that makes them such brilliant promoters of Shared Lives.
“They really are the dream team in terms of promoting Shared Lives from different perspectives.” Says Bob Bell, Service Manager at the scheme.
