Meet Josh

“I had no time to grieve because I had to pick Max up from school and break the news to him, which was just as hard as losing mum.”

Josh was just 25 years old when he and his brother Ben began raising their younger autistic brother Max, who had just become a teenager, after their mother sadly passed away in 2024. Josh’s life changed overnight from being a big bother to unexpectedly becoming full-time parent.

“Then it was straight into working out with my brother Ben, 25 and my uncle Craig who was looking after Max the next day, who was buying the food, who was paying the bills and sorting his medication.

“We knew that when the time came Max would be with us but there was no plan. We had to sort it out as we were going. But we got a rota up and running and decided that Ben would live with him on certain days of the week and I would live with him on the other days. It gave us structure and routine on who was doing what. It was very difficult in the first six months but we stumbled through it.

“People my age are going on holiday with their partners and that’s the highlight of their year. For me, I have to see who will watch Max and get him to school, picked up and fed.

“If you were to say to me a couple of years ago that this is the situation that I would be in, I would be like, how am I supposed to have my life, build a career, do x, y and z as well as care for my younger brother. But you have to, in these situations you step up and ultimately, Max’s happiness and his progression is mine and my family’s number one priority.”