{"id":3105,"date":"2023-04-04T11:28:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T11:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/?p=3105"},"modified":"2023-09-14T14:41:38","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T14:41:38","slug":"reflection-on-carers-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/2023\/04\/04\/reflection-on-carers-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflection on Carers Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madeleine Starr MBE, Director of Business Development and Innovation, Carers UK \u2013 29\/06\/2020<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carers Week 2020 was our busiest ever for employer events focusing on support for working carers. Ironically, as lockdown brought huge swathes of the economy to a standstill, those able to keep going found themselves busier than ever as they worked hard to deliver services under unprecedented conditions. Support for staff with complex and challenging home situations was brought into sharp focus, and as Carers Week approached EfC members in the private, public and voluntary sectors signed up for a series of virtual lunch and learn events that had COVID-19 at their heart. We delivered 18 events in Carers Week itself, and additional events held both before and after the week brings that number to 25. These sessions reached nearly 1,500 employees, managers and working carers alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what has their experience in lockdown been? What challenges have they faced and how have they responded to them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, what are the problems that working carers themselves have seen in COVID-19? Many carers have been self-isolating with the person they care for \u2013 a partner or parent with a serious health condition or a disabled child \u2013 because day services have closed, care packages have been cut or the care staff who would normally support them at home cannot access PPE. This has often left them caring round the clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many have been working from home alongside that care and sandwich carers \u2013 managing care for a disabled or seriously ill child, partner or parent alongside caring for children – have also been managing home schooling, which in itself has brought many challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others have not been able to visit the person they normally support at a distance for fear of passing on the infection \u2013 this means they are having to make other arrangements to provide the support they would normally be giving, with new stresses arising from managing caring remotely<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of course we know that more people are doing this than ever before \u2013 an extra 2.8 million working carers out of the 4.5 million new carers identified in the research launched by Carers UK at the beginning of Carers Week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And how have employers been able to respond? Many of those hosting events had already recognised the particular circumstances faced by carers and explored ways to support them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As many of their staff moved to homeworking, employers had developed communication channels to ensure carers felt well connected and able to discuss their challenges with line managers and colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had created real flexibility in working patterns and encouraged a task-focused rather than hours-done approach, helping teams understand how they could work together flexibly to provide cover when needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was recognition that particular caring situations made working from home much more challenging and in response some employers had already adapted and enhanced Carer and Special Leave policies (including additional paid leave) to reflect the impact of caring on work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Employers had also focused on providing access to counselling and mental health support, as well as signposting to sources of helpful information, and had promoted the use of online platforms to facilitate peer support through virtual employee network meetings and drop-in sessions, helping to maintain connectedness and wellbeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, as Carers Week fades away and lockdown arrangements are eased, what are the lessons that employers can take away from the crisis? One key message seems to be that COVID-19 has given employers a new and deeper understanding of the needs of carers which can be built on for better and more tailored workplace adjustments and flexible working arrangements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crisis has seen employers introduce new ways of working which they accept can deliver really effective results rather than just keeping the show on the road, and there seems to be a greater understanding in the workplace more widely of the need to support working carers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Employers have described support for working carers as \u2018the way we do business\u2019 \u2013 perhaps the most powerful and positive message to come out of what otherwise has been a challenging and difficult time for us all.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Madeleine Starr MBE, Director of Business Development and Innovation, Carers UK \u2013 29\/06\/2020 Carers Week 2020 was our busiest ever for employer events focusing on support for working carers. Ironically, as lockdown brought huge swathes of the economy to a standstill, those able to keep going found themselves busier than ever as they worked hard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20857,"featured_media":8065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20857"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efcdigitalwales.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}