Priority 4 - A Life Outside of Caring

Carers should be able to maintain their social relationships with family, friends and others. Remaining socially connected has an impact on our mental and physical health, therefore, identifying and developing opportunities for carers to meet others, either in the same situation or otherwise, is a key priority. To achieve this, we will:

1. Support carers to be able to access social and leisure interests away from their caring role as they choose;
2. Identify and put carers in touch with other carers where they wish to do so, in order to establish new connections and a wider support network;
3. Promote digital solutions such as social media, to enable carers to form and sustain new networks of support;
4. Help hard to engage or reach carers, such as those in rural areas, to be better socially connected and experience fewer feelings of isolation;
5. Ensure that young carers have educational opportunities and the opportunity to experience activities outside school hours, that support them to develop and sustain friendships with their peers;
6. Help carers who want to access education, work and training to do so, and ensure that the education and life chances of young carers in particular are not compromised by their caring role;
7. Help working carers to remain in work where reasonable/possible and have a degree of work life balance to enable them to work, care and maintain their wellbeing;
8. Help carers who have eligible needs to have relief from caring to enable them to maintain their social and family networks.