'Being a carer is making a difference every day' - Charity films aim to help people recognise unpaid caring
Looking after someone close to you can gradually become a caring role. What may begin as a little extra help can grow into responsibilities that shape their day and yours. Yet identifying as a carer may take longer.
That gap, between providing care and recognising the role, is at the heart of a new film project being developed by Yorkshire charity Carers’ Resource, with support from Bradford City Council.
The charity is inviting unpaid carers in Bradford to share their experiences and help shape three short films as part of its Proud to Be a Carer project. It hopes that seeing familiar situations on screen will encourage people to recognise their own caring responsibilities and find out what support is available to them.
Carers’ Resource helps unpaid carers of all ages across Bradford and North Yorkshire. Its work includes practical advice, emotional support and help accessing benefits, grants and breaks from caring, with support tailored to each person’s needs.
Heidi Watson, chief executive officer, says: “Carers see themselves as parents, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, good friends, or neighbours. Unpaid caring is something which they may do because they love their families or care very much for friends or neighbours.”
Watson says the project was developed in support of Bradford District and Craven Carers’ Strategy, which the charity helped to shape. The intention is to show caring across different cultures and relationships, with the hope of reaching people who may not realise that support is available.
Caring responsibilities can affect carers’ own health, relationships and working lives. Watson says some leave jobs or substantially change their routines in order to support another person, resulting in more financial pressure. She points to the added costs some households may face, including specialist equipment or diets for disabled family members. Alongside these expenses, there can be less time to look after the carer’s own wellbeing.
“Unpaid carers often put the needs of the person they care for first above their own health and wellbeing,” she says. “This can mean missing their own health appointments, missing meals, losing or limiting their social lives and living under intense carer strain.”
Lisa Brown, the charity’s marketing and communications manager, says finding time to seek help can itself be difficult. Contacting several organisations, waiting for calls back and working out what each can offer can become another task to fit around looking after someone close.
For someone who is contacting Carers’ Resource, the first step may be a phone call or registering through its website. Watson says that straightforward requests for information may be answered during that initial conversation. People requiring more in-depth support are referred to a support worker, who explores their needs and develops a tailored action plan.
For Stuart, a carer from Bradford who receives support from Carers’ Resource, having somewhere to turn matters. “Being a carer is loving the person who you care for, even when they don’t know who you are,” he says. “Being a carer is making a difference every day...Carers’ Resource has really helped me with practical and emotional support.”
Real carers like Stuart will help to shape the charity’s films. But sharing an experience does not mean having to appear on screen, and the charity wants to hear from people in different caring situations.
“Carers will be invited to co-design what the films will show and if they wish, they are also welcome to be featured,” Watson says. “We want to show what unpaid carers’ lives are like so that people who don’t see themselves as unpaid carers recognise that this is what they do, so that they can reach out for help.”
Alongside sharing the finished films online, the charity hopes to show them in community settings, including community centres. Brown says GP surgeries are another setting it hopes to reach.
A Bradford Council spokesperson says: “The project strongly supports the ambitions of the Bradford District and Craven Carers’ Strategy, helping to identify more unpaid carers and ensure that people receive the right support at the right time.”
For Watson, recognition is the starting point. “We want to help as many unpaid carers as possible, but the first step to accessing help is recognising that they are an unpaid carer.”