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South Warwickshire
South Warwickshire has been praised by local carers for the quality of its information for carers:
• Leaflets are available in several Asian languages and there are plans to translate materials for the newer Portuguese and Polish communities.
• Carers’ Advisors stay in regular personal contact with carers who need extra support via telephone contact and home visits.
Keith, a carer from South Warwickshire said: “When I became a full time carer, it was a surprise to me how little I knew about services and benefits available to carers. I was so impressed by the high-quality information, advice and support provided by the South Warwickshire Carers’ Support Service that I became a Trustee and was recently elected Chair of the Board of Trustees.”
North East Wales Carers Information Service [NEWCIS]
Carers across three counties in North East Wales are benefiting from a service:
• It tells them about local carers’ services and puts them in touch with professionals, so that GPs can flag up carers on medical notes. It provides practical training for carers on topics such as first aid and lifting and handling.
• Carers can find out about the service through magazines and business cards widely distributed in GPs surgeries, Carer Information Points at the local community hospital and regular awareness raising events.
Manager Carys Williams says: "It doesn’t matter how many carers you talk to, information is always top of their list. We’re continually trying to think of new ways for carers to access our services and find out the facts they need."
Partnership with pharmacies: Moray, Scotland
In Moray, North East Scotland the Carers Centre got together with a local pharmacy to distribute cards and letters explaining what being a carer involved and what support they could benefit from. The scheme was also promoted in the local press. Approximately two thirds of carers identified asked to be included on the Centre’s mailing list, whilst the remainder requested help such as benefit checks and information about the law regarding disability, and how to obtain additional services.
Getting the GPs on side: Durham
In Easington, County Durham the Carer Support Worker collaborates with community health services to identify and support carers. She has established links with GP surgeries to
raise awareness of carers’ needs. She makes presentations to staff teams, holds awareness mornings in the surgeries and identifies champions amongst primary care staff.
Local information points
A number of libraries now have customer service centres, which include information for carers. In Doncaster, carers are able to use the internet service to find out about services and to download information from the local authority website e.g. lists of local care homes, and CSCI information about the quality of the local services.
• St Helens: the council carried out detailed analysis of the Census data on local carers and were able to break down the information into ward level statistics. This enabled them to identify where local carers were, and provide them with support.
• Awareness raising events are a good local opportunity to reach new carers in the area; Huntingdonshire publicised carers’ services at a local medieval event.
• Bradford produce a tape recording of local services for hard of hearing carers.
• In Bristol a DVD is available in 10 languages to help family carers from Black and Minority Ethnic communities to find out about breaks and other support.
Does your local authority use a good channel of communication to get the message across to carers? Tell us about it by emailing equalpartners@carersuk.org
Carers UK has launched a new campaign Keep Counting Carers to raise awareness of the harm that would be done to carers’ services by taking the question about carers out of the census. We are lobbying the Office for National Statistics and the DH. more...
