Family Carers Support service review
Services exist in County Durham to support unpaid family carers who are both adults and children. This piece of work was looking to hear from those individuals about their views and experiences of the support that is provided to help inform future developments around the contracts for these services locally.
As part of engaging with the adult carers in the County, a series of face-to-face focus groups were held. These provided valuable insights into understanding the priorities for the types of support that they value in their role as a family carer. In addition, the local 'MELISSA bus' was taken out into the Dales area of the County as part of Carers Rights Day. This provided another opportunity to reach out to people where they were and engage them in conversations while also helping to provide advice and support for their needs.
The engagement with the young carers (those under 18) was delivered in a different way. An outdoor activity event was held for the young carers, during which there were opportunities for informal in a relaxed and informal way.
You can read more about the outcomes of the engagement in the report. Subsequently, the information collected from the various face-to-face sessions has also been compared against national and local carer survey data collected in November 2021.