She says that she has looked after her two grandchildren and she has done this for well over 16 years. This is because her daughter has a drug problem, but now she has a debt of over £20,000 and she is now facing bankruptcy as well. Two charities are designed to help those who are having to look after children and they have said that Maureen Seed’s situation is not uncommon at all. Another charity found that over a third of carers have to use their credit card in order to buy food, and this should
not be happening at all.

Even though more and more people are going into homecare jobs and carer jobs, that doesn’t mean that other people are getting the support that they need because it isn’t just the elderly that are in need of support. Sometimes the children that they look after are in need of support as well.

Maureen Seed is facing financial difficulties because she wanted to make sure that the children could then go on school trips and that they could also go on holiday when they wanted as well. Eventually she was able to get family allowance and then child tax credits, and her grandchildren have the firm belief that their lives have been saved as the result of her grandmother taking her in and looking after her.