Ready for Carers Week 2011

Carers Week 2011 will be the largest awareness raising week in the UK and it begins on Monday 13^th June. Over 1500 organisations including Carers’ Centres and Crossroads Care schemes, other charities, local councils, GP surgeries, hospitals and private sector companies will be holding events throughout the week.

My week begins with an event with MPs and carers on Monday, which will be something akin to speed dating. Numerous carers will be sat at various tables and MPs will come in and speak to each one, moving around the tables giving them a chance to hear and discuss what it’s like to be a carer.

The aim is to show MPs the range of people that caring can affect and the different issues involved. So there will be young carers there, older carers, carers who combine work and care, people who care for people who have mental health problems, or learning disabilities, or physical disabilities. I’ll blog on Monday night to let you know how it goes.

On Wednesday, Sheila Gilmore MP is holding a debate in Parliament on carers and the effects of spending cuts on them and there will also be a reception for carers at 10 Downing Street hosted by the Prime Minister, David Cameron MP. We will have a guest blogger reporting back on that one.

Fast forwarding to Sunday 19^th June, The Princess Royal Trust for Carers will be featured on the BBC Lifeline Appeal on BBC One at 4.55pm. Do tune in and tell friends and family about it – we hope it will raise the profile of carers and also where carers can get help.

You can find out what events are happening in your local area at the Carers Week website and do post comments letting us know if you are involved in holding events for Carers Week. If you are, good luck!

Take care

Gordon

PS: Carers need continued support. Don’t forget to tune-in to BBC Lifeline’s appeal for carers on BBC One on June 19th at 4:45 pm (if you are in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) and 5:15 (if in Scotland). Please do spread the word.

Do not let funding cuts affect services for young carers

Note: Danni Manzi, guest blogger this week, is young carers’ lead at The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Chair of the National Young Carers Coalition.

Young carers are hitting the headlines today. The BBC has found that 700,000 young people identified themselves as young carers – four times as many as the last set of official statistics.

We’re urging local and national governments not to cut funding to services that support young carers

The 2001 census identified 175,000 young carers which we always knew was a vast underestimation. It asked parents to complete the survey on behalf of their child – many either don’t recognise the caring role their child has, or they don’t want to disclose it for fear of intervention from services. Also the census only asked about physical disability, it didn’t refer to mental health, substance misuse or HIV/AIDS so it missed out on a significant number of young people that provide care for parents in these situations.

The new BBC figures are just a start. In our experience, we know just how hard it is for young carers to recognise themselves as such and to come forward for the help they need. So it’s very likely that there are many more young carers than the 700,000 identified by the BBC, especially when there is stigma (perceived or real) surrounding the condition of the person they care for.

It’s important that young carers feel able to come forward and tell people they are carers. Schools have a vital part to play in the identification and support of young carers. Social care does too. Often just a small amount of help, put into place early enough, can really reduce the caring a young person does and help them to cope. But our worry is that with cuts in funding, services will be less able to support young carers and their families; it’s likely that now, only when a caring role has caused damage to a young carer’s health and well-being, will services be able to help.

We’re urging local and national governments to not cut funding to services that support young carers, including funding for dedicated young carers’ services that do so much for so many young carers across the UK.

At The Trust, we work really hard every day to raise awareness of young carers needs’. Sometimes it feels like we’re getting nowhere and then out of the blue we’re handed a golden ticket. Today might just be one of those days.

Let’s hope that everybody is listening!

Danni Manzi

Further info:

Young carers can find online support on www.youngcarers.net

If you are working with young carers you can access info and resources on http://professionals.carers.org/young-carers

Bridging the gaps for young adult carers

The Government announced £1million for young carers services yesterday

The voluntary sector is known for leading the way in partnership working and that was in evidence at the launch of the National Young Carers Coalition (NYCC), yesterday.

Hosted by Sir George Young, the event brought coalition partners, young carers and young adult carers, support workers and MPs together to celebrate the many achievements for young carers in recent years.

What have we got to celebrate?

The 2008 Carers Strategy has a dedicated chapter on young carers. The “Think Family” strategy and Extended Family Pathfinders focus strongly on young carers and their families. All steps in the right direction.

Then there’s the £1million funding announced at yesterday’s event to help young carers services look more at the needs of the whole family when supporting young carers.

But we can’t rest on our laurels.

There’s still lots to be done. Families, particularly where there is mental health illness or substance misuse, are still reluctant to approach services for help because of the stigma attached to these illnesses and because they worry that their children may be taken into care.

Gaps in children’s and adults’ services mean that too many families are still going unsupported and young carers continue to find themselves in inappropriate caring roles.

Another challenge for services and professionals supporting carers – and for the NYCC to address – is the 290,000 young adult carers aged 16-24 in the UK.

Professor Saul Becker talked yesterday about research that highlights how many of these young adult carers fear the loss of support when they turn 18.

Progress in education, employment and training can be seriously hindered by a life with caring responsibilities and this age group are particularly affected by the challenges of trying to balance caring whilst carving out a life of their own.

And this throws partnership working back into the spotlight.

Adult’s and children’s services need to think about how they are going to work together to make sure young adult carers don’t get left out on a limb when they turn 18.

The words of one young adult carer who spoke yesterday ring in my ears today: “Just because I’m 18, it doesn’t mean I stop caring… so services shouldn’t either”.

Rest assured that this message was heard loud and clear yesterday and is another thing The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and its coalition partners has on its “To Do” list.

Take care,

Danni

Danni Manzi is Young Carers Lead at The Princess Royal Trust for Young Carers and Chair of the National Young Carers Coalition (NYCC)

Why the mental health strategy matters for all carers

Mental health is not a specialist concern, it matters to all carers

A guest blogger! I’m Drew, The Trust’s lead on all things mental health related. I’m stepping in for Gordon this week because, well, we like to keep things fresh!

Gordon would like to have the excuse of being on an all-expenses paid trip to the Bahamas, but alas for him, he is doing his job as normal. I’m also here to give a flavour of some other work we do, which links up to Gordon’s sterling work lobbying our elected officials.

So, as always, there are a number of big Government initiatives and consultations going on. Alongside examples like the Big Care Debate, there are other key issues other colleagues and I lead on, often within specialist areas like young people, substance misuse, and of course mental health.

Specialist? Bunk! Bunk I say! Mental health is categorically not a specialist issue, as not only is mental health something we all have and must manage, but the majority of carers are likely to experience some impact on their mental wellbeing as a result of caring. Which is why I’ve focused my efforts on the Government’s new 10-year strategy for mental health in England, New Horizons.

We’ve submitted our response to the New Horizons consultation (read it here) which finished on the 15th October. This was based on what carers, our network of Carers’ Centres, and other partner organisations said they wanted to see. We’re promised the final strategy from the Government before Christmas.

So why is this relevant for all carers?

Firstly, the New Horizons consultation document sets out the vision for mental health service improvement in England, making it extremely relevant to carers of people with mental health problems. But the other, loftier goal is to improve ‘whole population mental health’; in short, more prevention as well as better treatment.

Essentially, the Government aims to raise awareness of mental and emotional wellbeing, why this is important, and help prevent people from becoming unwell in the first place. To do this, we’ll probably need health promotion campaigns on mental health that will stick in the public mind (like ‘5 fruit and veg a day’ has for diet), and lots more besides.

Given that carers as a group often want and require emotional support, as well as running higher risks of mental health problems, it’s vital to get New Horizons to respond to carers’ needs as a priority group.

We need New Horizons to support carers with their own mental health and emotional needs as much as improved services.

I share Gordon’s upbeat approach about the world. I like to pretend to be a cynic, but can’t keep it up; curse my natural optimism! But for New Horizons, my optimism about what the consultation document says is slightly dampened by my fears about what it’ll actually do.

Call me naïve, but I believe the Department of Health (who authored New Horizons) do want to improve things for mental health service users, carers and the wider public. It’s in no-one’s interests for things to get worse. I like New Horizons’ messages about carers, emphasising carers’ vital role in treatment and need for services to support them too.

But how is this going to happen? There’s no new money to support implementation of the Strategy. There are no set targets for changes to be made – understandable given increasing decentralisation of health and social care, but worrying for those who feel that benchmarks need to be set for goals to be met.

After reading the whole document (all 130 thrilling pages), I’m left with the sense that without explicit targets and monitoring for the Strategy’s goals (perhaps tied in the with new Care Quality Commission’s upcoming mental health strategy), we’ll be asking for the same things again in 2020. And with the spending cuts promised by mainstream political parties, this looks increasingly likely.

What can we do?

Keep the pressure up, and make it clear to our MPs and Government officials that carers and their mental health needs are not a specialist, or perish the thought, optional area of public expenditure.

Keep pushing how services could be improved, and offering examples of how this works well in some areas.

And finally, keep the argument fresh in our MPs’ minds, as we move towards election day, that without supporting carers and their own needs, it’s not just carers who suffer.

This is not a specialist concern – carers’ needs are especially important.

Take care,

Drew