No one-size-fits-all method for providing carers’ services online

This is a guest blog by Gigi Burgdorf, Practice Sharing Champion at The Trust and Crossroads Care.

When I first started conducting focus groups for a report about carers and the internet – How can the web support carers? published this week by Crossroads Care and The Trust – I thought I had a pretty good idea of what the research would reveal. I had a list of questions about what sites and features carers liked and what barriers might prevent them from getting online, and to be perfectly honest, I thought I could predict what many of the answers were likely to be.

New report on ‘How can the web support carers?’

But when I actually started getting feedback from carers, I was surprised at the sheer number of different viewpoints on every issue. It soon became clear that writing the report would not be a simple matter of saying, “these are the services that should be available online and here’s how to set them up.” When discussing the idea of accessing emotional support by email, it was easy to predict that opinion would be divided due to the fact that some people love email while others hate it. But the actual reasons for or against went beyond a simple case of like or dislike.

At one focus group, a supporter of the idea said that, although she didn’t love email, it would be a good way for her to access support because “no one can hear what you’re typing”. She felt she couldn’t be completely open on the phone or when a support worker came to visit because the person she was caring for could hear her from the next room, meaning she had to censor what she said to protect his feelings. A clear case for email support was made, and several other carers echoed the sentiment.

And then another carer spoke of how useful she found telephone support as it meant she could talk while doing other things like folding the laundry or cooking her children’s tea. If she wasn’t able to carry on with other responsibilities while having the conversation, then she felt she wouldn’t be able to find time to talk at all. To her, and several other carers with similar perspectives, offering email support was as good as offering no support at all.

For every type of online service we discussed, there were endless reasons for and against. It began to seem as though there were as many different opinions about carers’ websites as there were carers. And ultimately, that’s what the research showed – that because every caring situation is different, there is no one-size-fits-all method for providing carers’ services online.

So instead of trying to formulate prescriptive rules about carers’ websites, ‘How can the web support carers?’ focuses on sharing the views of carers themselves as a way of illustrating the issues providers need to be aware of when developing carers’ services online.

Ultimately, I hope the report gives readers the experience I had in the focus groups when I realised the necessity of offering choice to reach more carers, and the importance of consultation – even when you think you already know the answers.