A life outside caring – what can you do?

A number of key organisations are responsible for providing services to carers and the people they care for.  These organisations will also employ staff who are themselves carers (up to 20% of employees are likely to have caring responsibilities).  Better information about carers and their needs and rights will help individuals within these organisations to make a difference and contribute to the improved delivery of services to carers.  Individual staff and managers will also gain increased awareness of what expectations they should have of their organisation’s performance.

The checklists on the right draw on the work of ACE National, Carers UK, and the Beacon authorities.  These checklists are specific to the different levels of responsibility and function that exist within organisations; at each level they highlight a range of targets whose achievement has been demonstrated to help with carer proofing the organisation.  Very simply they enable individuals to ask the right questions about the organisational or operational performance for which they are responsible in terms of responding to the needs of carers.  If you want to know where you stand, go to the appropriate link.

If having been through your checklist you need to find out more about carers and employment, there are key resources throughout this toolkit.