What is caring?
Carers are unpaid people who help friends, family members or acquaintances with daily life. Usually due to disability, substance abuse, old age or mental health. Many people will become carers in their lifetime and it can be a challenging transition where people often feel unsupported. This is despite the fact that about one in 9 people become carers at some point in their lives. Carers are important to the mental health care system as they allow for people to be assisted in their own homes by people who care about them. This ensures that people with long term conditions that are unlikely to be “cured” like intellectual disability or even old age can have the highest possible quality of life. People often don’t realise they are carers due to seeing it as simply their role as a son, sister, relative or friend. However anyone who spends a significant portion of their time assisting someone with daily life for the above reasons is a carer whether they realise it or not.
When carers are involved in the healthcare process the one they are caring for tends to do much better and achieves more successful outcomes. The carer acts as a vital mediator between the healthcare system and a person with different needs to others. Caring is an often untalked about and underappreciated aspect of the health system in Australia which is why it’s important for carers to know they are not alone and that there are support services for them.
What services are there for carers?
The first of these is Carer Gateway, found at https://www.carergateway.gov.au/ which is the hub for all the government supported services dedicated to carers. Here you can find peer support groups, online courses as well as opportunities for someone to take over your carer responsibilities for a couple of hours so you can have a break. This website is designed to support carers with all aspects of their lives and contains resources and information about how to better integrate their caring into their daily lives. This is especially true for young carers (under 25) who may be caring for a parent or sibling with difficulties.
If you are a young carer you likely need different support to someone who is more established. This is especially true because young carers often go unseen as the societal expectation is that they will be receiving care, not providing it. Some of those resources can be found at https://youngcarersnetwork.com.au/ where you can find tips on managing being a young carer, information on how to access the young carers bursary program and much more. You can also join their mailing list to get important updates as well as information on young carers events and promotional campaigns. The aim of these services is to help young carers have at least a somewhat normal highschool/university experience whilst also ensuring their loved one’s are cared for.
If you want to learn more about other services tailored for carers service NSW has a great list here https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/guide/carers#services-and-programs. Even if you may not consider yourself a carer please check out these resources if any of the descriptions in this blog relate to you. You don’t have to self-identify as a carer to get a little extra support.