Challenge Accepted Podcast

At The CBF, we know first hand how isolating and exhausting supporting someone with complex needs can be. Our podcast hosts family carers who are also navigating the ups and downs of supporting someone with a severe learning disability.

The Challenge Accepted Podcast

Wellbeing is a word we hear and use a lot. We know it’s important and covers a range of ideas from self-care to happiness, confidence, resilience, rest and relaxation, but we also know that it’s a tricky one to define and certainly one route to wellbeing does not fit all. For example, how do you fit in a yoga session or even a cup of tea when you’re caring for someone with complex needs?

Of course, we don’t have all the answers, but we do have a podcast!

Check out the most recent episodes here:

On Spotify

On Apple

On Amazon

Why a Podcast?

The podcast started off as part of a project with some amazing Kent-based families that was funded by The Coyler Fergusson Charitable Trust. During this, we investigated what the issues were and how we could better support carer wellbeing as an organisation. The idea for a podcast was developed, with a central focus on it being driven by families’ experiences and family carers who talk about the real-life issues and situations that impact on carers wellbeing.

At The CBF we know first hand how isolating and exhausting supporting someone with complex needs can be. In this podcast we hope to offer support, advice and encouragement to help navigate the pressures of caring and, most importantly we’ll be speaking to other carers and families about how they manage every day, and we hope hearing their stories will give you a little boost. Since 2023, we have explored topics ranging from summer holidays to allowing yourself to take care of your wellbeing and conversing with people who ‘get it’.

Now in its 3rd series, funded by The Masonic Charitable Foundation, the focus is all about transition. We brought together family carers to talk about housing, future planning and all things transition!

Challenge Accepted features family perspectives on connecting with others, taking time to themselves, spending time together as a family and accessing respite. The series is available everywhere you can access a podcast from and on the Acast player on our website below, we hope you enjoy listening!

We want to hear from you!

Have any thoughts, feelings, reflections, or revelations you’d like to share about the podcast?

Let us know using the form below:

Challenge Accepted Series 3 – What did you think?

These are some of your favourite episodes:

So Much of Life is I’m Terribly Sorry, I’m so sorry’

Challenge Accepted kicks off! We speak with Shaun writerof the BBC series There She Goes and his wife Sarah , about the ups and downs of life with their daughter Joey and the impact of the show.

I Give Myself Permission

Eva contacted The CBF to tell us that she’d recently given herself permission to take time for herself and she shared a list of amazing activities that she’d been trying out – so of course we needed to speak to her about these interesting activities to hear how they had helped with her overall wellbeing.

Another Way of Not Meeting People

Back in September on a very hot day we invited three Kent mums who, despite living within a few miles of each other, had never met, to join us for an afternoon. This episode is about the importance of connecting with others ‘get it’ in the way that only another family carer of someone with severe learning disabilities can.