Carers Week is an annual campaign which is run to raise the awareness of carers, and to highlight the challenges unpaid carers face on a daily basis. Unpaid carers can be anyone who supports a family member or friend who has a disability, mental or physical illness, addiction, or who needs extra help as they grow older.

 

Although most carers decide to take on the role of an unpaid carer due to their love and care for the person they are caring for, it does come with many challenges. Being an unpaid carer can have an impact on many aspects of their life such as; relationships, health, home, finances and even paid work. 

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These challenges and impacts can be mainly overcome with the extra support from carer charities and organisations, carer support workers throughout the NHS and council services and even with the support of employer organisations who can learn to be carer friendly.

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To get the support, unpaid carers first need to accept that they are unpaid carers. This can be a huge thing to overcome with most carers not recognising their roles, preferring to refer to their original roles of husband/wife, mother/daughter, father/son, friend etc. and although they are still all of these things, when the dynamics change into providing more support to their loved one on a regular basis either physically or emotionally they then become that persons carer too.

 

There are around 3000 registered carers in Dorset and around 5.7 million throughout the UK and each and everyone saves the Health and Care System £23 Billion a year according to Age UK and they also save the economy £60 billion  a year (bbc.co.uk/news).

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Carers week is a time for organisations, service providers, employers and other members of the public to show their appreciation for all the daily battles that unpaid carers have.

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Our way of showing appreciation and attempt to highlight carers struggles as well as promoting their rights during carers week will see The Dorset Carers Hub out on our roadshow in the far corners of Dorset. We will be out and about with our marquee, information stand, goodies and our friendly amazing volunteers. We look forward to meeting as many of you as possible.

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We will be at five different locations throughout the week ending with an activities day on the Saturday where carers will be able to sample some of the activities we provide throughout the year in our art and craft room.