If you already have a sense of where you are, you can go straight there.
Phase 1: Pre-carenting
carents.co.uk/carenting-journey/pre-carenting/
Your parents are getting older. It may be in the back of your mind and not yet something you have put into words. A background awareness that sits alongside everything else and occasionally surfaces.
Pre-carenting is the stage before anything has been named. You may not call yourself a carent yet. You may not need to. But you are in the early part of the Carenting Journey, and this is, genuinely, the best time to be here.
Phase 2: Something Different
carents.co.uk/carenting-journey/somethings-different/
Maybe there was one clear moment: a fall, a diagnosis, a letter about the driving licence. Or maybe there has not been a single event at all, just a gradual accumulation of small things. A couple of stumbles, a name that would not come or a visit where something felt slightly different, without being easy to put into words.
Your parent is still managing. Still running their own home. Still making their own decisions.
This is Phase 2 of the Carenting Journey. For many people, it is the first real entry into it.
[Something's Different: working out if, when, and how to respond.]
Phase 3: Running Two Lives
carents.co.uk/carenting-journey/running-two-lives/
Some people arrive here after a clear crisis: a fall that led to a hospital stay, a diagnosis that changed the landscape, the death of their partner or a call from a neighbour. Others find themselves here gradually, without a single moment they could point to. Either way, you are now actively carenting.
This is Phase 3 of the Carenting Journey. It can last years. And the list of things you are dealing with tends to grow rather than shrink.
[Running Two Lives: you are doing far more than you realised you would be.]
Phase 4: When It Takes Over
carents.co.uk/carenting-journey/when-it-takes-over/
Your parent can no longer manage daily life without help. Home care is in place, or urgently needed. You may be weighing up whether the current arrangement is still the right one. The weight of all of this tends to be invisible to the people around you, even as it has become the organising principle of your days.
[When It Takes Over: your parent is struggling to live safely at home. And the weight of that is falling mostly on you.]
Phase 5: When Carenting Becomes Clinical
carents.co.uk/carenting-journey/when-carenting-becomes-clinical/
The decisions are getting harder, and clinical teams are present in a way they were not before. For the first time in this journey, the system may be alongside you rather than at a distance. The grief that may have been building since much earlier can be harder to set aside.
[When Carenting Becomes Clinical: the decisions are getting harder. And for the first time, you may not be facing them alone.]
Not sure you count as a carent?
You do not need a diagnosis, a care plan, or a crisis. If your parent is getting older and you are beginning to think about what the next few years might bring, that awareness is where the Carenting Journey starts.
The Carenting Journey starts at Phase 1 for a reason. If nothing has changed yet, that is not a reason to wait.
