Engage: It’s the little things that count – supporting great social work practice with carers

This week is Carers’ Week, and it seems that there is no better time to announce a whole new set of tools and resources to support social work practice with carers.

The Department of Health commissioned us at the start of 2016 to develop these, and we have worked with Carers UK and the Carers Trust to recruit a group of carers to co-produce the materials. The development process included two workshops with this group, the first to get their ideas and experience written up into case studies, and then to review the materials we produced to make sure that it reflected their lived experience.

As well as producing some fantastic resources, being involved in the workshops had some surprising benefits for individual carers. People felt that they learned a lot from each other and went away feeling valued and that their voice had been heard. One person told us they felt their involvement in developing the resources had had a very positive effect on their caring role. Having the opportunity to speak, be heard and their voice embedded in a resource seems to have had a positive impact.

At the second workshop we asked if people might like to be filmed, talking about what they feel good social work practice should look like. The messages that we heard repeated again and again were: ‘listen to me’; ‘read the case notes before you come to visit’; ‘view us carers as an asset’; ‘don’t promise to do something that you can’t deliver’; and ‘answer my phone calls, emails’.

The desire to work collaboratively with professionals was very strong, and what struck me from hearing those voices is that these are all relatively little things that people want. It’s what we’d all want or need in any interaction, to be heard, to feel listened to and to be seen as a whole person.

Watch the film for an insight into personal experiences of being a carer.

It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with this group of carers to develop these tools. Each person was really committed, generously donating their time to enable the development of tools to support other carers.  I learned a huge amount, and the resources are so much richer for having carer input from the start, as well as the group reviewing the materials once they were developed.

There are over 6.5 million people across the UK in a caring role and we have a clear responsibility to look after this unpaid workforce. These resources are intended to enhance understanding of the issues that carers are facing and experiencing, and provide guidance on how to work with them, not only to enable them to meet the various demands and challenges of being a carer, but also to support their physical and emotional wellbeing.

The Department of Health is making supporting carers a priority because they believe that ‘caring for others should not be to the detriment of the carer’s own health and wellbeing’ and that there is more we can all do to ensure this. To help with this work they are carrying out a survey to gather the views of carers, those who have someone caring for them, social workers and other professionals supporting carers. Take part in the survey to help inform their strategy to support carers.

About the Author

Lisa Smith is Research and Development Manager at Research in Practice for Adults (RiPfA). She joined RiPfA in July 2013, following over four years of working in a commissioning role for Torbay Council. Lisa has a background in research having worked for a number of years at the University of Bath in the Mental Health Research and Development Unit as both a researcher and a research governance facilitator. Contact: [email protected]

Lisa was writing on the Department of Health – Social Care blog which you can follow here: https://socialcare.blog.gov.uk/