On the tip of my tongue: Series 1 Episode 3 - Caring and carers - Michael Shann

Supporting Carers: Insights and Initiatives from Carers UK

In this episode, Michael Shann, head of carer support at Carers UK, discusses his 12.5-year journey with the charity, highlighting its mission to improve the lives of carers. He provides an in-depth overview of the services offered, including a helpline, online and in-person meetups, and various support resources. Michael also elaborates on the challenges carers face, such as mental health issues and financial difficulties, and emphasizes the vital role carers play in the economy. The conversation touches on ongoing campaigns for policy reform and future plans for Carers UK's 60th anniversary, aiming to increase awareness and support for carers.

00:00 Introduction and Personal Background
01:44 Day-to-Day Work at Carers UK
03:29 Support Services and Resources
04:36 Membership and Volunteering
06:41 Challenges and Peer Support
09:12 Finding and Accessing Support
11:16 Current Issues and Future Plans
16:54 The Role and Impact of Carers
20:14 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
 
Carers UK is the leading national charity for unpaid carers.
It supports, advocate for, champion and connect carers across the UK, so that no one has to care alone.

Making life better for carers

Looking after someone can be a rewarding experience but it can also be lonely and bewildering.  

For almost 60 years Carers UK has been making life better for carers, raising their voices together to call for change and seek recognition and support. 

Guided by a Board of Trustees that's primarily made up of current and former carers, it is here to make life better for carers, listening to what carers tell us and rooted in the real experiences of its members. 

Transcript

Michael Shann -Carers UK
 

[00:00:00]  
 

Michael: Hello there, Jonathan. Great to, to meet you. And so my name is Michael Shan and I'm the head of carer support at Carers UK. I've been with the charity for about 12 and a half years now. And and I have to say it's probably the most rewarding job I've done in my career. I've worked for a couple of other other charities and NHS as well. 

But when I, I started work at Carers UK, my dad had just died and it was, it was only during the interview that I had for the job that I realized that his, his, my dad's wife had been caring for him for the last two years and I'd been a, a distance for carer and going up to Yorkshire every couple of weeks. 

And so I, it kind of made me realize that I didn't know that much about caring. I hadn't been that aware of, of carers in my [00:01:00] family and, and in wider, wider society. And I think maybe it's partly that connection that through a recent experience of caring when I joined the charity that's kept me here. 

But also it's a fantastic staff team and it's, I've just loved working with so many inspirational people. Carers over the last 12 years as, as members and volunteers with Carers UK as well. 

Jonathan: You're front line, aren't you? We've had discussions about the policy side of things, but obviously , you're managing the actual caring side of it. Perhaps you could tell me a little bit more about your work day to day  

Michael: I work within the Carer Services Department at Carers UK. Carers UK's vision is for a society that recognizes values and supports Carers and our mission Is to make life better [00:02:00] for carers. And that's very much about what we do day to day in trying to make life better for carers to try and support them through what, for many people can be a really tough journey. 

So within our department, we have a helpline where carers can contact by email or telephone to get tailored advice on their current situations. We support working carers, we have digital solutions for supporting people in their caring journeys as well, such as we have a an online, a mobile phone app called jointly. 

And then within our team we run online meetups on zoom every week. We have around three sessions a week. So we have what we call care for a couple of sessions by carers. come together from right across the country to share how they're feeling and share any challenges they may, may be facing in their caring [00:03:00] roles and, and to support each other. 

And it's a really friendly and supportive group. And we've we've been going for, for four years now since the start of the pandemic. And then we also have share and learn sessions where we may have say some of our helpline advisors, will join us to talk about benefits and carers rights and to ask people's question, answer people's questions about their caring situations as well. 

We also within our team we have staff who continually update our website carersuk. org with with lots of information on on benefits, carers rights and other ways that people can access support. Recognizing that, you know, Carers UK doesn't doesn't have all the answers as well. There are lots of carers local carers organizations as well. 

And people can find out about those [00:04:00] we have a local directory on our website as well. And then within the team that I manage, so we support our members and volunteers. So we have 50, 000 members at Carers UK and our, our membership is growing by about 400 to 500 plus every month, which is, which is fantastic. 

When members join Carers UK, so joining is, is free, it only takes a couple of minutes through, through the website. Or you can contact us if, if you don't have. access to to to online access to our, our websites. And when you join Carers UK, so you'd receive monthly emails from us, our quarterly caring magazine access to our online forum, Carers Connect. 

You'll also get invites to, to events we run. So we run events throughout the country, what we call roadshow events. We also have an annual members conference as well, which we held in March [00:05:00] this year. Our first hybrid event we did this year, which was our highest ever attended. members conference. 

So we had about, just under a hundred people joining in person and around 450 joining online and as well. We then have quite a lot of our members. We, I mean, one of the, some of our, lots of carers have said that they, they join Carers UK to access support for themselves in their caring situations, and they stay to, to help others. 

Often to help others go through some of the struggles that they've gone through themselves. So we talk often about our membership being a, a supportive community and a movement for change. People may get involved in, in supporting our, our campaigns such as around, you know, the form of carers, carers allowance, taking part in research as well. 

 Lots of. Members will also [00:06:00] apply to undertake some of our volunteering opportunities as well. So we have around 10 volunteer roles to suit everyone's time availability and skills and preferences. So we have lots of community based roles of raising awareness of caring in local communities. 

online roles as well. And also recognizing that lots of carers are working as well, juggling work and care. So raising awareness in workplaces. And we also have our head offices in, in London, in in just near London bridge. And we have some office based roles as well.  

Jonathan: Obviously, as you know, I have aphasia and I'm talking about dropping groups in the aphasia charities. It's a very similar situation, really, because they help each other. So they've got they've got peer. People that run the, the groups have aphasia themselves. So there's a kind [00:07:00] of symmetry I suppose, between being helped and being, but so you're, the caring situation, suppose it's, what's your, as you say, we're talking about your situation, it seems very similar in the, approach,  

Michael: That peer support is, is, is vital really. And we've run since the start of the pandemic we've run nearly around 800 sessions now. And, and we found that, you know, I did think when the pandemic restrictions were lifted with numbers dip when people were able to get out more, but I think we've found that for carers, For many carers will find it difficult to get out to meetings in their local communities if they're looking after someone but the, the online sessions really suit people in that they're able to keep an eye on the person they're looking after and join the, join the session and, and also I think [00:08:00] we've found the fact that they've got to know people from across the country quite well, but also they know they're not going to bump into them in the supermarket 

audioJonathanHirons21964788142: Probably a good thing. 
 

Michael: Yes, yes, I think we've found that people are maybe more likely to open up. People often get emotional, particularly when they first join the sessions. Often it can be the first time they've met other carers and talked about the the challenges and pressures they're under. And that can be quite, you know, that release of having struggled, struggled along by themselves for a long time in many cases. 

audioJonathanHirons21964788142: The aphasia people have the same situation and feel, feel the same. They think, when they come to the session, they, for the first time they say, Oh, I thought it was just me, but actually there's loads of other people, exactly the same situation. It gives them support and it gives them [00:09:00] confidence to carry on and do things that maybe they wouldn't do if there wasn't a an organization behind them, 

. One question does come to mind is how do people find you? I, I know obviously you, you've just told me that you've got quite a lot of stuff on the websites and so on and so forth, but not has access to that sort of thing, or maybe the capacity to, to do the research. 

audioJonathanHirons21964788142: So, how did, if I, if I ended up in this situation and I didn't know about you, how would I, how would I find you? 

Michael: Well, I'd recommend to start with to to have a look at our website. So carersuk. org. It's a fairly new website as well. So it is quite easy to navigate, to look, to find the information you're looking for. I would really recommend joining one of our Care for a Cup of Sessions as well, which are held every week. 

We also hold a couple of, [00:10:00] one or two evening sessions a month as well for, you know, the carers who'd find it difficult to join in the day. . 

We often talk about, I mean, last night's care for a couple of session, for example, we have lots of our regulars, some have been caring for decades, one for over 50 years. And we had someone joining who was, had been caring for his mother for less than a month. And so it was very new to it and the others were all really supportive . We talked about carers assessments, and encouraging people to to contact the local authority about getting the carers assessment see what support may be available locally. And we if people contact the helpline I mentioned earlier, and they can get a benefits check as well to see what they might be entitled to as well. 

 We have got a new series. on Carers UK's website of short animations as well, which just give [00:11:00] a short summary of say carers allowance or as I said, there's about 14 of those and they just give a little snapshot that might be easier to to digest, you know, a whole lot of Information about 

audioJonathanHirons21964788142: I suppose this is the time where we talk about what's going on in the news at the moment, but it's such a complicated system anyway, as I understand, and I know a little about this because my mother in law is in, this system we have carers going in for her and we know, what you have to, I think they're hoops you have to go through to, to, to even get your package sorted out. 

I like to think we're fairly we, we're fairly good at working these things out, but not everybody does know how to do these things. And it's an incredibly complicated and a long winded system, isn't it? 

Michael: Yes, it is. We do [00:12:00] also have for people who may not be online. We do have a fairly new service where we have information available by telephone as well.  

audioJonathanHirons21964788142: In the news, as we speak today, there's quite a lot of fuss about the system for the DWP system is so dense 

Michael: there's been so much news coverage the last couple of months of the carers allowance overpayments. 

Which has affected, you know, many thousands of carers.  

Jonathan: A shock, shocking number, isn't it? 

Michael: It is. 

It is. Some carers through no fault of their own really have just gone over the earnings limit and have accumulated debts of thousands of pounds, which, you know, the DWP is now asking them to return. 

Some people have had to sell their houses as well.  

Jonathan: I was reading a bit this morning and it says if they've gone over the allowance by a year, say, you don't, and it's a pound they don't ask for a, [00:13:00] 52. They asked for the whole lot, which in case I was reading, it was something like 4, 500 or something like that 

Michael: yes, exactly. And with with the general election coming up later this year so Carers UK have just released our manifesto for carers. So what we're asking the new Prime Minister to implement to support carers, and one of those is around, you know, reform of, well, reform of social care, but also, you know, reform of the carers Benefits as well as increasing the benefit of reform of the whole system around carers allowance. 

 Well, the only other thing I wanted to talk about, is the future. You sound as though, as an organization, you're, you know, you're, you're moving forward. 

Jonathan: Do you have any new, well, plans that you can talk about anyway that you have in the [00:14:00] future to, to make your offer, say, should we say, even better. It sounds brilliant already, but is there anything that can be done, apart from what we've talked about, anything that could be done better to help people? 

Michael: I spoke earlier about our vision for a society that recognizes values and supports carers, which, I mentioned I'd worked for another couple of charities, which can sometimes have Charities can sometimes have visions that you feel will never be achievable, whereas it feels that that vision of a society that recognizes values and supports care should be achievable within our lifetimes, it should be achievable, you know, within the next 20 years, really, but when you support, when you speak with carers, they often say we're nowhere near that. 

They don't feel recognized. They don't feel valued and want to feel supported. So next year is Carers [00:15:00] UK's 60th anniversary. We were set up as a charity in in 1965. So it will be we'll be celebrating 60 years. So there'll be lots of. events and activities taking place throughout the year to raise awareness of, caring even more than we, we usually do. 

 We're aiming to reach 60, 000 members by the the end of our 60th. anniversary year.  

Jonathan: How do we stack up against other countries? Have you got any thoughts about that? In Europe, say?  

Michael: it's interesting when we, we do sometimes have visits from carers organizations from other countries when you hear the perspective of carers, the challenges facing carers in, in, across the world are very, are very similar. We had another recent visit from a carers organization in, in Canada. 

We have. Last year we had a visit from a carers organization in, in Taiwan and the, the challenges [00:16:00] facing carers are quite similar. The ways that governments and other organizations support carers can, vary quite widely. There's an interesting book that came out last year by Emily Kenway called Who Cares? 

And she does, within there, there's quite a lot of analysis. Of how different countries support carers and and so yes, there are, there are some countries where I think carers are better recognized, better valued and, and, and better supported.  

Jonathan: We all need to do better, basically. Yeah. 

Michael: that can be done and we're doing all we can to. You know, to raise awareness, to to influence ministers and, and policy makers to to bring about concrete change to, to, to improve support for carers. 

So an unpaid carer is anyone who looks after [00:17:00] someone who is older, ill, Or disabled. And we know that caring can happen to anyone at any time and our research shows that by the time you reach 50, you have a 50 50 chance of becoming a carer. 

So most of us will become carers at some point in our lifetimes. The recent census in 2021 found that five, there are 5. 7 million carers. in the UK. Research done for Carers Week found that that figure could be significantly higher, could be as high as 10. 6 million. So yes, a huge issue for our society and, and Carers UK's research has found that carers contribute 162 billion pounds to the UK economy. 

So if the state [00:18:00] had to step in. And do all that the 5. 7 million carers do in, in looking after their 

Jonathan: They do themselves. 

Michael: Then that will cost 162 billion, which is nearly the the cost of a second NHS. And so that just, just shows how, you know, what, what contribution carers make to, to society. 

And in terms of what carers do, so carers provide emotional support, they might undertake household tasks like cleaning and shopping, and they might, might help people with health care appointments, managing finances and life admin, might help with, with personal care such as washing and getting dressed. 

Help with ordering and collecting and giving medication and just helping people to move around and keep safe really as well. But through doing that, we know that caring can be really [00:19:00] exhausting. It can often lead to carers feeling burnt out and, you know, yeah, affects their physical and mental health. 

Our research from our annual state of caring survey, for example, found that 27% of carers have bad or very bad mental health, and that and that all of those 84% of them feel they have a continuous low mood. We also know that caring can lead people to giving up their jobs. 

It can result in them being in financial difficulties. As well and our, our state of caring research last year found that carers are, were struggling more than in previous years with their finances and higher proportion was struggling to make ends meet. And 75% of carers receiving carers allowance was struggling with, with cost of living [00:20:00] pressures. 

Jonathan: The people who are not being paid to do this, are doing their, for their loved ones, maybe not their loved ones, but for some, but for their families, or even, not even their families, 

It's a sobering thought. The information you've given us is fantastic. 

 I think that's great, Michael. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for coming, on to the podcast. really interesting. As, as ever, one doesn't know half of it, you know so it's been very helpful. And thank you very much.