DESPERATE parents looking after some of Hampshire's most vulnerable children are victims of a crisis in the region's respite care system.

Social services chiefs have launched an urgent appeal to recruit families to ease the mounting pressures on parents providing round-the-clock care for severely-disabled youngsters.

Some families are having to wait as long as six months just to get one day's break.

And the Daily Echo can reveal that the parents are also losing out because of an amazing oversight by Department of Health officials.

A government cash injection of £120 million designed to boost respite care nationally over the next three years has not included parent carers in the first year. The cash would be used to fund home help carers.

One Southampton father affected by it is Mark Bevis, from Thornhill, who has written to the Prime Minister claiming his family is near breaking-point because of the care crisis.

His nine-year-old stepson, Scott, suffers from a rare disease that makes him difficult to control, as well as incontinent and epileptic.

Mark and partner Samantha Bailey also have a newborn baby boy, a five-year-old son and a dog to look after.

The couple are now preparing to get rid of beloved family hound Max, and fear they may also have to let Scott go into residential care because they can't cope without help.

Delivery driver Mark said: "We try to spread the work between us but it's wearing us down. Scott is very destructive around the home. You need eyes in the back of your head.

"We've caught him tipping up the pram. We can't even leave the baby to crawl on the floor for fear of what he might do.

"We don't want Scott to go into care, but that might be our only option."

Mark originally appealed to Southampton City Council to provide respite care but it came under the jurisdiction of Hampshire County Council earlier this year when the family moved from Sholing to West End.

This moved them to the back of the waiting-list. The county council has just told them that they can expect to wait another three to six months for respite care.

Alison Ryan, chief executive of the Princess Royal Trust for Carers, said: "The local authority is obliged to have plans to provide respite care for children like Scott who have challenging behaviour.

"It all depends how well the local authorities were prepared for this responsibility. If they didn't have much in place it can be a real challenge finding volunteers to provide this care.

"Having a break is really vital. Carers can get driven to breakdown - not because they stop loving the person they're caring for, but because it all gets too much for them."

A spokeswoman for Southampton City Council said: "It's incredibly hard to find people willing to look after children like Scott who have so many difficult needs."

A spokeswoman for Hampshire County Council said: "We do have a very real problem recruiting family link carers.

"These are families who look after children, perhaps on a Saturday, so that the other family can go out and relax for a while.

"Meeting the needs of these children is a real challenge and takes special skills, but it's also very rewarding."

Anyone who would like to devote some time to respite care should call The Southampton Family Placement Team on 01703 435269 or Gill Burtwell at the Eastleigh Family Resource Centre on 01703 620345.

All volunteers are subject to routine checks.

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