Carers Matter - Everybody's Business

Introduction

According to the 2001 census, there are an estimated six million carers in the UK and this is set to increase to nine million by 2037. Every year, two million people move in and out of caring.

Health and social care services in particular, have a vital role to play in ensuring that carers are at the heart of the social care system and are treated as expert partners in care.

Definition of a carer: A carer spends a significant proportion of their life providing unpaid support to family or potentially friends. This could be caring for a relative, partner or friend who is ill, frail, disabled or has mental health or substance misuse problems'. Carers at the Heart of the 21st Century DH ,2008

Skills for Care and Skills for Health have produced Carers Matter - Everybody's Business, guidance to help employers and organisations support carers better through learning and development of staff. The guidance is based on a set of Common Core Principles for Working with Carers that were developed in consultation with carers, people working directly with carers, and interested parties across health, social care and other key sectors.

Carers Matter - Everybody's Business is not an 'off the shelf' training package, but rather the tools that enable training to be commissioned or developed to reflect local workforce needs, local settings and context. It aims to be flexible enough to be delivered in a variety of ways to meet differing working and learning needs.

The guidance comes in three parts and provides information about:

• who carers are (as distinct from care workers)
• why carers are important
• how you can support the learning and development of your workforce to improve and enhance your services for the people who use them, and their carers.

Carers Matter - Everybody's Business is designed to be used by various people in varying roles. Therefore it is for you to use and select the parts that you feel help you the most. However, to get you started, here is an overview of which parts may help whom most:

Part 1 - aimed at chief executives and senior managers who are responsible for the strategic direction of their business and its priorities

Part 2 - aimed at people who are directly responsible for commissioning or delivering learning and development

Part 3 - contains a wealth of additional supporting resources relevant to people across a wide range of settings and roles that support learning and development

Download file (.WMV)

The video clip above was filmed during Carers Week 2011. Sharon Allen CEO of Skills for Care explains the importance of carers and their crucial role in providing people who use services with better quality care and support. Sharon talks about how 'Carers Matter Everybody's Business' (CMEB) is a key tool to help employers work with their staff so that they understand the particular issues for carers and the support that they need. CMEB was extensively road-tested with a number of carers, and organisations who support carers, such as St Joseph's Hospice in Hackney, who feature in the second part of the clip. Carolyne Barber describes how St Josephs piloted the CMEB framework and how it helped them to support their carers better through learning and development of their staff.

Feedback

Thank you for viewing the Carers Matter - Everybody's Business (CMEB) resources. We want to ensure that they are as useful and useable as possible and as such would be grateful for your feedback by completing the form below and sending back to carersstrategy@skillsforcare.org.uk

Feedback form (.doc)