At the Centre for Care we have an exciting funded opportunity, through Improving Adult Care Together (IMPACT), to work with organisations that want to explore how the Dashboard can support them and the carers they work with. This is called an IMPACT Network.
Please see below for further details and join us for an information session on the 30th of April at 11am.
Click here to explore our Unpaid Care Dashboard.
Unlock the Power of Data with the Unpaid Care Dashboard
Unpaid carers are the backbone of our communities – the care they provide in England and Wales is worth a staggering £162 billion — a 29% increase since 2011.
To better support these vital individuals, the Centre for Care and Carers UK have developed the Unpaid Care Dashboard. This powerful tool is designed to help policymakers, commissioners, and local organisations translate complex demographic data into actionable insights to improve policy, practice, and the everyday experiences of carers. It can be used to see which groups of people are providing unpaid care within local authorities, and compare this with other places in England and Wales. You can also use it to explore patterns of unpaid care, such as gender differences, regional variations and changes over time – helping to identify inequalities and disparities within different regional areas.
Who is the Dashboard For?
Whether you are looking to identify hidden carers, renew local strategies, or advocate for better resources, the dashboard provides the tailored data you need. Here is how different professionals can use it:
1. Local Carers Centres
- The Challenge: Finding and reaching people to help them identify as carers earlier.
- The Solution: The dashboard allows you to pinpoint where carers might be and identify the specific faith or community groups they may belong to, enabling highly targeted outreach.
2. Local Authority Commissioners
- The Challenge: Renewing local Carers’ Strategies and service offers to accurately reflect the principles of equality, diversity, and inclusion.
- The Solution: The dashboard highlights crucial demographic shifts and health trends. For example, a commissioner in Bournemouth can see that their caring population is in poorer health, and that there are now significantly more young disabled female carers (rising from 9.9% in 2011 to almost a third in 2021).
What next?
Join our IMPACT Network and create change for Unpaid Carers!
We are recruiting ‘Local Network Coordinators’ to work with us to bring together key actors in adult social care, including funders/decision-makers, service providers, people who receive care and support, unpaid carers and staff who provide care to develop local action plans for change.
Local Network Coordinators will:
- attend a training and planning meeting with other Local Network Coordinators
- recruit members 8-10 people including people who receive care and support, unpaid carers, front-line staff, funders/decision-makers and relevant service providers to their local Network.
- run four Network meetings, roughly six weeks apart, with financial resources available to support this (including room hire and refreshments)
- lead the discussion at the Network meetings, guided by the materials supplied by the Centre for Care
- summarise the points raised in each meeting and send a note of this to the Centre for Care
- meet four times with the other Local Network Coordinators from across England and Wales to plan and debrief after each Network meeting
- work with their Local Network to create an action plan for practical change.
- provide feedback after the Network ends so we can understand what happened next.
There are resources available to support the IMPACT Networks and your involvement as a Local Network Coordinator, includes:
- A Local Network Coordinator fee of £5,000.
- Additional resources to support participation costs including support for people who are unsalaried, replacement care/PA support for Network members and travel expenses.
How to get inlvolved
If you would like to hear more about this opportunity, please click here and register to attend the information session on the 30th of April at 11am using a google form. Alternatively, click here to sign up as a network coordinator.
For any questions, please contact Fay Benskin: f.e.benskin@sheffield.ac.uk
