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Carers

Introduction: 

A carer - sometimes known as a family carer - is someone who, without payment, provides help and support to a partner, child, relative, or friend, who could not manage without their help. This could be due to age, physical or mental illness, addiction or disability.  This is not the same as a care worker, or care assistant who receives payment for looking after someone.

A number of Transformation Fund projects focused on carers. There were other projects which involved care workers; details of these will be found on the page about learning in care settings.

Key Projects: 

Approaches Taken by Transformation Fund projects involving carers included:

Lessons Learned: 

Carers can be so preoccupied with the health and well-being of the person they are caring for that their own needs are neglected. They may experience continual stress, which can be made worse by feeling isolated at home with the person they are caring for. Informal adult and community learning (ACL) can be particularly valuable to carers as a means of reducing isolation and alleviating stress, but their caring responsibilities can prevent them from finding out about learning opportunities and taking part in learning. 

Transformation Fund projects found that learning could be made more accessible to carers by:

  • working in partnership with carers' organisations to spread the word about learning opportunities;
  • providing learning opportunities that carers could attend together with the people they were caring for;
  • organising short taster courses that carers could dip into without making a long-term commitment;
  • offering residential learning opportunities that carers could attend when their family members were in respite care;
  • including ICT skills in the learning, and encouraging learners to use digital resources to keep in touch with each other and learn between sessions.

Carers expressed a huge lift in mood after having "me time".  They expressed deep gratitude and many had a very emotional response on leaving the residential events.

Because carers are usually confined to their own homes it's hard for them to develop a collective voice to represent their own interests and shape the services that are provided for them.  By learning the skills to make a film and present a TV programme a group of Liverpool carers were able to speak up for carers all over the country.  See the TV programme, entitled 'Lion-taming' here.

Making it work: 

To enable carers to engage in informal ACL it's important to:

  • contact local carers' organisations to find out what learning opportunities carers want and need, and work in partnership with them;
  • provide taster sessions so that people do not have to commit to a long course which they may not be able to attend if their family member is unwell;
  • provide support for people to carry on with learning activities at home between group sessions, either through informal social networking or using online learning tools.
Background: 

Anyone can become a carer; carers come from all walks of life, all cultures and can be of any age. Many carers do not consider themselves to be a carer, they are just looking after their mother, son, or best friend, just getting on with it and doing what anyone else would in the same situation.

The 2004 Carers Equal Opportunities Act gave carers new rights.  Social services have to consider what a carer wants to do in terms of work, study and leisure when carrying out carers' assessments. Access to learning for carers has many practical benefits. It provides the opportunity for carers in employment, or carers who want to return to work, to develop their knowledge and skills. It gives people a break from caring and a chance to socialise. It offers the chance to step out of their role and to be seen as an individual.  It gives carers a way to develop interests and hobbies which can provide a welcome change from the focus on caring responsibilities.

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