Challenges faced by caregivers dealing with children with invisible disabilities

verogakio

Caregivers of children with invisible disabilities are vital stakeholders when it comes to safeguarding the health, well-being and overall survival of the children that they care for. Caregivers, however, face many challenging conditions that make it difficult for them to optimally fulfil their caregiving role.

Caring for children with invisible disabilities places persistent psychological and physical demands on the caregiver, which could result in the caregiver experiencing high levels of stress. As a direct result of caregiving, caregivers providing care to children with invisible disabilities experience many challenges which include physical and mental health and overall functioning. The psychological stressors caregivers experience often manifest themselves not only in psychological problems but in physical problems as well, which all affect the quality of life for these caregivers.

The caregivers also experience symptoms such as depression, anxiety, guilt, anger, insomnia, generalised muscle pain and headaches. With that said, caregivers who are in a poor physical and psychological state are at a higher risk of providing poor quality care to care children with disabilities.

Caregivers’ individual needs are often overlooked, disregarded and misunderstood by their families, communities and society at large and very minimal or no support is offered. Most of these caregivers who mostly are single women have to stop working to attend to their children with invisible disabilities 24/4 hence making it impossible to provide basic needs for their children. 

This caregivers strongly suggests that the majority of them do not feel empowered and therefore emphasises the need for caregiver empowerment. Caregivers of children with invisivle disabilities often feel disempowered as they lack the skills and knowledge to provide optimal care to their care recipients. 

BKiwu

Thank you @verogakio for highlighting the challenges faced by caregivers of children with invisible disabilities. It is encouraging that there some level of support in terms of women groups for emotional support and advice on how to navigate these challenges without feeling overwhelmed. The next thing to do would be to have capacity building of the groups for the individuals to be economically empowered and be at a position to provide for their children effectively.

Lets hope for the best always.

verogakio

The support is very little or none to be honest. There are so many groups but they are more for sharing our stories advising each others etc.