Live your life to the fullest with a Shared Lives carer in Norfolk or Suffolk
Our brilliant Shared Lives East Anglia service is here to support people in Norfolk and Suffolk to live their lives as independently as possible.
Based in the wonderful market town of Diss, our experienced East Anglia team has been supporting people all the way from the Wash down to the border with Essex and across to Cambridgeshire since 2017.
What is PSS Shared Lives East Anglia?
PSS Shared Lives is a type of care and support in Norfolk and Suffolk where you can get exactly what you need to live as independently as possible, while living with one of our fully-trained PSS Shared Lives carers.
How and when your carer supports you is up to you. PSS Shared Lives is all about giving you what you need to live your life how you want to and do all the things you want to do.
PSS Shared Lives East Anglia could be a good fit for you if:
- you’ve got a learning or physical disability;
- you’re a new mum or dad who would like some help to learn parenting skills;
- you need some support with your mental health;
- you're escaping an abusive relationship;
- you’re recovering from a drug or alcohol addiction;
- you’re a young person leaving foster care;
- you’ve just come out of hospital and need a hand while you get back on your feet; or
- you already get care but want to have a bit more choice about how it works.
How can PSS Shared Lives East Anglia support me?
Our East Anglia service offers five different types of Shared Lives support. There's something for everyone.
PSS Shared Lives: Live-in
Our Shared Lives Live-in service is where you can get support while living with a Shared Lives carer and their family in Norfolk or Suffolk.
You can live with a Shared Lives East Anglia carer for as long as you want to.
We'll help you choose a PSS Shared Lives carer in Norfolk or Suffolk who has a home that will be right for you. For example, if you need to live somewhere where your bedroom's downstairs, we will find that for you. Or, if you're a fan of the great outdoors, we can try to find a carer for you who has more outdoor space for you to enjoy.
PSS Shared Days in Norfolk and Suffolk
With PSS Shared Days, you can meet up with one of our Shared Lives carers in Norfolk or Suffolk and spend your day with them.
With Shared Days, you don't live with your carer. Instead you go to your PSS Shared Lives carer's house to spend the day with them and get some support.
You might go out and about together, or your might spend time in their home with their family.
PSS Shared Lives: Moving On
Our Shared Lives Moving On service is for young people in Norfolk and Suffolk who are about to leave foster care, but don't want to go it alone just yet.
We know what it's like to get to the point where it's time to leave your foster carer, but you're not ready to get your own place and juggle all the parts of adult life on your own yet. With our Moving On service, you can come and live with one or our Shared Lives carers and their families until you feel ready. That could mean you stay with them for five years, or it could mean you stay with them for a year. It's entirely up to you - there's no rush.
Your carers will support you in exactly the way you want them to - you won't be treated like a child. You'll be given respect, your own voice and choices. Your carer will be matched to you based on what you want from life and how much support you need, and you can choose who you live with and where they live, so you can move closer to your friends, work, uni or places you love, or stay put where you grew up.
PSS Shared Lives: Moving On Together
If you're about to leave foster care but want to stay living with your foster carer in Norfolk or Sufulk, they could turn into a Shared Lives carer with us and keep on supporting you in the same way, for as long as you like.
Your foster carer can be both a PSS Shared Lives carer and a foster carer at the same time. By signing up as a Shared Lives carer, they get to keep on supporting you until you're ready to go move into the adult world and be independent.
If you decide you'd like to live with a different carer (not the person who was your foster carer), you could use our Shared Lives: Moving On service (more about that above).
PSS Shared Lives: Short Breaks
With PSS Shared Lives: Short Breaks, you can take a break from your usual care and go and stay with a PSS Shared Lives carer for a short space of time.
Your Short Breaks carer will support you in just the same way as your usual carer does - exactly how you want them to.
You can choose who you go and stay with, which means you could go and stay with a carer who has a house by the sea, in the countryside, in a big city, or close to someone you love.
With PSS Shared Lives: Short Breaks, you can get a change of scenery, and your usual carer can have a little rest.
Shared Lives feels like chosen family
Find out more about Shared Lives and what it's like to live with a Shared Lives carer.
Find out more about Shared Lives
How will I know a PSS Shared Lives East Anglia carer is right for me?
Once we know all about you and what you need, we'll match you carefully with a some of our fully-trained PSS Shared Lives East Anglia carers.
We'll match you based on the stuff you like to do, the type of home or place you'd like to live in, whether or not you'd like to live with any furry friends, and which homes would be accessible for you.
From there, you'll have a good look through the list, and decide which carers you want to meet.
Once you've met a carer you like, you can choose to spend the night at their house to check things are going to work well, and when you're happy, you can move in.
What do people think about PSS Shared Lives East Anglia?
Every year we ask the people we support in East Anglia to tell us how they'd rate PSS Shared Lives. Here's what they told us in 2025:
4.7/5
for how safe they feel
4/5
for how great we are
4/5
overall
Our team is here for you
Our ace team in Diss will be there for you from the moment you contact us.
They're here to look after you, include you, and make sure you're having the best possible experience with us.
While you're living or staying with your carer, our team will pop out and see you regularly, to make sure everything's going well and help you if something needs to change.
Our team in Diss hold regular meetings where all of our East Anglia carers and the people we support can come together and meet each other, get up-to-speed on the latest news, have their say on how things work at PSS Shared Lives East Anglia, brush up on some new skills and simply have a laugh together.
How to get support from PSS Shared Lives East Anglia
If you'd like to have a chat about the ways we can support you, or you're interested in becoming a Shared Lives carer, please drop us a line.
Email: sharedliveseast@pss.org.uk
Call: (01379) 644423
Other PSS Shared Lives locations
Shared Lives North Yorkshire
Get support from PSS Shared Lives across North Yorkshire.
PSS Shared Lives Merseyside
You can be supported by PSS Shared Lives Merseyside in Liverpool, St Helens, Knowsley and Widnes.
PSS Shared Lives Manchester
See how PSS Shared Lives can support you if you live in Manchester.
PSS Shared Lives Lincolnshire
Get support from PSS Shared Lives in Lincolnshire.
PSS Shared Lives North Wales
Learn more about how to get support from PSS Shared Lives in North Wales.
PSS Shared Lives Midlands
Get support from PSS Shared Lives if you live in the Midlands.
Questions about Shared Lives people ask us all the time
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PSS Shared Lives carers are trained in all kinds of things from safeguarding and providing personal care to administering medication.
We’ve got a dedicated learning and development team who support them to be the very best they can be, and each carer must do essential courses regularly to make sure they are up-to-date.
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Yes! In England, PSS Shared Lives is regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). In Wales, we‘re regulated by the Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW). We’re inspected regularly.
You can read our CQC reports by visiting the CQC website: www.cqc.org.uk. You can read our CIW reports by visiting the CIW website: www.careinspectorate.wales.
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Yes, you can choose your PSS Shared Lives carer.
We'll take you through a match-making process, looking at what you like, what you don’t like, what you enjoy doing, what you need from your PSS Shared Lives carer and, if you’re going to be staying with your Shared Lives carer, what type of house you’d like to live in. For example, if you use a wheelchair, you might prefer to live in a bungalow, or if you’re a new mum or dad, maybe you’ll want to live somewhere that can fit a baby, too.
We’ll match you up with a carer who’s a good fit for you and who lives somewhere that suits your needs.
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There are a few ways you can get a PSS Shared Lives carer.
- Have a chat to your social worker and ask them about PSS Shared Lives
- Get in touch with one of our team (check the list of our locations on this page) and see if we can help
- If we're not in your area right now, check to see if there are any other providers in your area
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Our friendly team will be with you from the beginning.
First, we'll get to know all about you. We'll find out what you like, what you don't like and what you want to do in your life. You, your social worker, your family or your carer will tell us all about the support you'd like to have, and what you're looking for in a carer. We'll get to know about any special support you'll need, and what type of house you want to live in.
Once we know all about you, we'll show you which Shared Lives carers in your area would be a good fit for you. We can use our matching website, Matching Lives, to show you who they are, and even show you round their houses.
If you see someone you think looks like a good fit for you, we can arrange a meet-up, so you can say hello, and see whether or not they're the right carer for you. We can even arrange for you to stay overnight to see what you think.
When we've found you a carer that you really like and you start your Shared Lives journey, we'll keep an eye on things. We'll come and visit you and your carer regularly to check things are all ok, and that you're safe, happy and well.
If there are any problems while you're with your carers, we'll help.
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Back in 1978, Shared Lives was invented by a brilliant woman called Sue Newton, who worked at PSS (no surprise there). Lots of older people were then living in ‘institutions’, where they lived in constant care. The government was closing lots of them down and many people who were living in them had nowhere to go.
That’s when we stepped up.
PSS invented a service where these older people would go and live with a volunteer who wanted to help them. It worked, and over time the service began to evolve, changing and developing to become what it is today – the fastest growing form of social care in the UK.
These days, the service isn’t run by volunteers, support’s provided by our amazing Shared Lives carers. And it isn’t just for older people, it’s for anyone who needs it.
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PSS Shared Lives is for anyone who needs some support. We support people with lots of different types of needs, and everyone's unique. We support you in the way you want to be supported. We support everyone from new mums and dads who need a little help adjusting to family life, people recovering from addictions and people leaving foster care, and people with learning disabilities, though to people who have mental health conditions, people with brain injuries, people with physical disabilities, autistic people, and people leaving a domestic abuse situation.
More information about PSS
About PSS Shared Lives
PSS has Shared Lives schemes up and down England and North Wales.
About PSS
PSS is a charity that supports people to live their lives beyond limits.
Become a Shared Lives carer
We're always recruiting self-employed Shared Lives carers around England and North Wales.