Local Authority Lead officer for Carers

Local Authorities are required to have a Carers’ Lead officer.  This person will usually be within Adult Services but must have effective links with Children’s Services, the Health Services and other partners.  ‘It does not remove the responsibility of other workers to address the needs of carers, but should offer leadership and a coordinated approach to carers' issues’.    The SCIE Practice Guide is available here 

You will want to:

1. Ensure a multi agency Carers Strategy exists and is regularly monitored. Representation on the multi agency strategy group will include carers (including parent carers), representatives from the Voluntary sector carers organisations, the PCT and other NHS organisations, Children’s Services and, if possible, an elected member who champions carers’ rights.  
2. Ensure the Carers strategy and implementation group meetings happen regularly and are promoted.  Work with your webmaster to put the minutes on your carers web pages and intranet. A toolkit to help identify progress on key themes of a Carers’ Strategy is available here
3. Develop a multi-agency information strategy within the Carers Strategy so all agencies can support carers to identify themselves (Job Centres, GPs, schools etc).
4. Ensure leaflets for carers are in a fully accessible range of formats.
5. Have effective and co-ordinated web-sites offering
   - networking and strategic support to the voluntary sector
   - Information about juggling work and caring
6. Ensure that work around your carers’ strategy aims to get the maximum value out of all the other strategies and policies with a link to balanced scorecard as minimum and use data balanced scorecard and action plans rather than creating a new or stand-alone processes
7. Promote equal opportunities for carers in line with guidelines from the General Social Care Council Standards for practitioners which say: ‘As a social care worker, you must protect the rights and promote the interests of carers’. It states that this includes ‘ Promoting equal opportunities for carers‘ and ‘Respecting diversity and different cultures and values’.  A tool to help you achieve this is here   
8. Participate in Joint Commissioning with the PCT and practice-based commissioners to ensure the availability of support for carers in line with the multi Agency Carers’ Strategy and LAA.
9. Provide input to Local Area Agreements in partnership with the NHS and District Councils as a vehicle to identify how carers can be better supported – on issues such as support to working carers to ensure their full participation in the labour market.  A briefing from Carers UK about LAAs is available here
10. Actively promote full engagement with carers click here    for the SCIE Participation checklist.   You will need to ensure there is an adequate budget for carer involvement and your organisation should have a policy to ensure that carers are not out of pocket in terms of travel expenses for attending meetings and planning groups.
11. Undertake promotional work to raise awareness of carers’ issues, for example, work with your local carers’ organisations to plan events for Carers Week and Carers Rights Day. This keeps carers needs on the agenda and helps hidden carers identify themselves.
12. Use the toolkit to help identify progress on key themes of a Carers’ Strategy and the levels of support available to carers that is available here
13. Ensure that the Council’s eligibility criteria address risk to carers including risk to employment as well as service users
14. Monitor carer satisfaction/positive outcomes of the work you do. A model questionnaire is available as part of the toolkit to help assess carers’ satisfaction  with the support and information received, carers’ assessments etc and this is available here
15. Ensure there is staff training on carers’ issues, wherever possible involving carer trainers.  A DVD of carers talking about their experience has been made by the Beacon Authorities, together with a pack of supporting training materials produced by Carers UK to help trainers ensure staff have a carer-centred view of good practice in assessment.  This can be viewed or downloaded here
16. Make links with the Local Partnerships in your area e.g. Learning Disabilities Partnership boards, Local Implementation groups for mental health and older people or other Health and Social Care Forums.  You also need to ensure carers’ needs are represented and encourage these groups to actively involve carers in their work.
17. Promote carer-friendly employment practice in the economy at large as well as the NHS and local authorities in your area (including second tier authorities).  Work with your HR managers to raise awareness of the duties of employers under the Carers Equal Opportunities Act 2004 and the Working Families Act 2006 click here for information from Carers UK.
18. Try to attend regular meetings of the regional carers’ lead officers’ network in your area.  They are a good source of support and information sharing.  If you can’t find them or they don’t seem to be functioning, the ADASS Carers Reference Group should be able to help you.  At the time of writing the Co-chairs are Caroline Marsh (Manchester) and Graeme Betts (Warwickshire)
19. Promote joint working with Children and Adult Services to support young carers.