Carers Week aims to raise the profile of the UK’s 5.7 million caregivers. We look at the work of these incredible people
WORDS: CLAIRE SAUL IMAGES: PEXELS, SHUTTERSTOCK
Millions of people across the UK provide unpaid care for a family member or friend who cannot cope without their support due to illness, disability, a mental health condition or addiction.
Carers Week aims to raise awareness of caring, highlighting the challenges that unpaid carers face and recognising the contribution they make to families and communities throughout the UK.
It also helps people who don’t think of themselves as having caring responsibilities to identify as carers and access much-needed support.
Many carers feel that their role is forgotten and invisible. This year’s Carers Week, June 10-16, aims to address that by “putting carers on the map”.
Joy cares for her mother, who lives in her own home with some additional support, and her adult daughter who lives at home.
Her daughter has anxiety and depression and an autism diagnosis. Joy also supports her mother-in-law, who lives in a care home.
“My mother, Christina, relies on me for personal, financial or emotional support. My daughter now has anorexia, too – she is not a well young woman.
“I need to be around, or at least contactable, for her as she needs reassurance much of the time, even over simple things such as what to have for dinner.
“She is highly intelligent and very knowledgeable, but she lacks confidence, so she needs support with going to appointments and I often need to communicate for her.
“She recently developed a problem with her legs and, at the moment, she is mostly reliant on me for transport.”
“I want to be there for all of them, but I also don’t really have a choice and sometimes I feel really down. My oldest daughter is amazingly supportive to me, but she and her brother have their own families to look after.
“My husband wants to be of help, but he doesn’t have the best relationship with our youngest daughter. It’s not easy, three adults living in a three-bed semi, with different needs.
“I tend not to access online resources unless there is something specific I want to find out but in the earliest days of caring, I found that the information on the Carers UK website was fabulous, a really good resource.
“For many, being a carer is like wearing an invisibility cloak.
