Are you a family carer?

For many people looking after an ill, older or disabled relative is “just something you do.”

Becoming a carer for someone is often a gradual process, like the illness affecting the person being cared for. The work of caring gradually impacts your daily life, restricting your ability to get time for yourself more and more. Because of this most people identify themselves as ‘wife/ husband/ daughter/ son/ friend’ rather than as a carer. You Are Both – not recognising you are carrying out a separate caring role can be a real barrier to accessing the vital support available to you.

Early identification as a carer enables you to access appropriate support and can significantly improve your health and wellbeing, prevent your breakdown as well as having a positive benefit for the person you care for.

For young people the early identification is vital in giving them access to opportunities to have the same life chances as other young people who do not have caring responsibilities.

Family Carers

A family carer is anybody who unpaid looks after someone with a long term illness, mental health issue or disability who cannot cope without their help day to day. They may not be family. They can be anyone that has a close bond of love or friendship with the person they care for.

Family carers can be any age. At Suffolk Family Carers Young Carers are Children aged 5 to 15 whilst Young Adult Carers are teenagers and young adults aged 16 -24. Adults Carers are anybody looking after children (Parent Carers) or older generations.

As a family carer you may be the only person carrying out the caring role (sole carer), the primary carer, or part of a network of family and friends, all helping to provide aspects of care.

Family carers may provide care in many ways, help with cooking or cleaning (practical), help with washing and dressing (physical) or help managing mental health conditions, complex emotions or fears (emotional).

How can Suffolk Family Carers help?

61% of Family Carers suffer physical ill health and 72% mental Ill health as a result of their caring role. Suffolk Family Carers is here to support all family carers, irrespective of age, caring role or circumstance

Our Advisers are here to talk with you about your caring role and what you need in terms of support. We are experts in supporting family carers with over 30 years experience of finding a solution to match your unique situation. This maybe via a service we provide directly to you, maybe help within your local community or help from the services and support of our partner organisations.

If you are a young person we could be working with your school or college to provide support, or it maybe from the range of activities we provide directly. Our dedicated Young People’s teams are here to help.

As an adult you can benefit from the range of different services we provide.