· Web view“A comprehensive description of the needs of a population that is defined, or defines itself, as a community, and the resources that exist within that community, carried

The Carers’ Centre

Community ProfilingSP10145

By Abbie Meyrick, Tracey Branch, Rachel Dunn and Bobbi Allison

1. Introduction 3

2. Aims and Objectives 5

3. Methods 7

4. Literature and Theory 14

5. Process and Reflection 17

6. Data/Information 22

7. Analysis/Learning 40

8. Issues, Ethics and Themes 42

9. Conclusion 45

10. References

11. Appendices

12. Final Statement

Contents Page

A community profile is defined by Hawkins and Percy-Smith:

“A comprehensive description of the needs of a population that is defined, or defines itself, as a community, and the resources that exist within that community, carried out with the active involvement of the community itself, for the purpose of developing an action plan or other means of improving the life of the community.” (Hawkins and Percy-Smith 2007 pp.5)

Put in simple terms community profiling is vital in assessing the needs of a community, analysing whether these needs are being met and evaluating existing services to see if they are reaching the groups in greatest need of support. (ARVAC 2001, cited in Hawkins and Percy-Smith 2007). The information gathered and presented can help to both identify strengths and weaknesses in how resources are being used as well as exploring areas of further development. Often a community profile can help in securing funding for charitable organisations and this was central to our brief.

Our project was with the BANES Carers’ Centre who had received funding from the Big Lottery 3 fund, and as a result agreed to increase the local communities’ awareness of what it means to be a Carer. Although they had increased awareness in over 7000 people, they had struggled to evidence this, and therefore needed us to collate data from the engagement team and combine it with our own, gathered data to produce a report evidencing that awareness had been raised about carers in 1000 people. This report would then be used to provide the evidence to the Big Lottery that the community were now much more aware of what it means to be a carer as a result of the work carried out by the Carers’ Centre.

Our group consist of Abbie Meyrick, Tracey Branch, Rachel Dunn and Bobbi Allison. Between us we hold a varied skill set, which we utilised in order to fulfil our brief. Each of the group members had an equal participation within this project. Working together we successfully found resources that aided our development in knowledge surrounding carers and the realities they face (See literature and theory section). This was a good platform for us to understand why the awareness we were raising was vital within the community.

Alongside this each member brought skills to this project that was invaluable in order for success. Abbie was able to present her computer skills, which proved beneficial when collating, analysing and presenting the data that the group had collected. In conjunction with this the energy Abbie supplied was useful in motivating group members, when at times, it was lacking. Tracey was the leader of the group, however was willing to allow others to fulfil this role when needed. Due to being older than the other group members, Tracey brought the skills of experience, which in turn gave the other members confidence in their own abilities. Her interpersonal skills were unquestionable, which proved beneficial when approaching businesses to raise

Introduction

awareness. Rachel is a warm and approachable, individual who we could discuss our issues with, this in turn reduced the conflict we had between group members, as we all felt comfortable and willing to talk about what might be hindering us completing the work that had been set. Bobbi was able to use her skills of being able to see things from a different angles, which allowed us to have an array of approaches to use, whilst being creative in doing so. At the beginning of the process we completed and discussed a questionnaire (See Appendix 1) that allowed each member to discuss our strengths and weaknesses, alongside what we expect from each other. The questionnaire called ‘So you think you want to co-work?’ was part of ‘The Essential Groupwork’ book (Doel and Sawdon, 1999). This process was beneficial for each group member to understand what was expected of them from the onset, whilst allowing other members to understand our own fears and what we could best contribute to the group. This allowed us to have an honest approach from the beginning, and in turn effectively stop any conflict arising in the group.

Confidentiality is vital in good practice to ensure that service users are protected from harm and distress. In respecting confidentiality we understand that personal information is sensitive and should be handled as such. During interviews we will make it clear that participants can withdraw at any time and we will cease any interviews if we judge that participants are showing signs of discomfort. Due to the fact that we would not be working with service users this does not directly affect us, however we conducting our awareness raising we made it clear to the individuals we spoke to that if they would not like their comments used, we would understand and respect this and withdraw our evidence from our overall data.

Therefore all work submitted in relation to this Community Profile Project will respect the confidentiality of the service users, carers and managers. At no point will names, addresses, contact numbers or any personal details be included in this portfolio. All professionals will be identified by role only not by name. Any service users included in the portfolio will be identified by initials only, changed to further protect confidentiality. The sharing of information within the community profile team will adhere to these same principles. Any perceived threats to confidentiality will be immediately reported to team leaders and swiftly dealt with.

Originally our aims were of based on the project brief that called for us to evidence that awareness had been raised in 1000 people about the lives of carers. This was a little vague and did not tell us anything about what would be accepted as valid evidence of raised awareness. Therefore although we were presented with a clear target in the form of an end number, we did not fully understand what type of data we were aiming for. On initial consultation with the project we were told that numerous methods had been used to try to evidence with mixed results. It was highlighted that issuing surveys after engagement events was problematic as they were often not returned. This demonstrated that we needed to raise awareness ourselves and think of a way of collecting the information there and then instead of at a later date and explore which research methods would be most suited to achieving our original aims (Silverman 2005). The project were extremely helpful in providing information about roadshows, however on receiving the list of organisations we quickly realised that visiting or contacting each name on the list would be a huge task and would not be the best use of our time and resources. In early meetings with the Carers’ Centre we had asked if there were any areas where they felt they had made little progress, and we were informed that local businesses were a group that had not really been approached. With the support and authorisation of the project we decided to focus on businesses and on schools. This revision of our aims was more realistic and helped us to identify two specific areas that we felt would give us a better chance of fulfilling our brief as well as helping us to identify hidden carers (Carers’ Centre 2014).

The overarching question initially was why the Carers’ Centre had struggled to evidence awareness raised and how could these difficulties be overcome? As we progressed we needed to know how to engage groups within the community, and what form this engagement should take. It was decided, after the consultation with the project that two group members would raise awareness in schools and two group members would raise awareness with local businesses.

Businesses

When approaching businesses our aim became focused on letting them know what life can be like for carers and that an unidentified carer could be a member of their staff or a customer. We wanted them to understand that for people with caring responsibilities, there could be significant and ongoing financial, social, emotional and physical difficulties that could contribute to isolation, and that a wider awareness of carers could help make a positive change to how carers feel supported in their communities.( Cooper et al 2011).Our need to gather large amounts of data remained fixed in our minds and we were aware that this approach would be time consuming; however we decided that achieving this aim in a way that would provide us with valid information, would involve face to face work with local businesses that would require a hand’s on approach. This more specific focus meant that we could

Aims and

Objectives

concentrate on engaging businesses in an understanding of carers, and begin to explore if they had any level of awareness of the lives of carers.

Schools

It was very surprising to see the number of young carers, “There are currently as many as 50,000 children in Britain who are providing substantial and regular care for an ill or disabled parent or other relative in their home.” (Franklin, B. 2002. P208). This is a significant number of children who are coping with roles within the house that children their age are not dealing with, therefore we felt it essential to look at this area as there involves a wide range of individuals who are vulnerable and will need support in many areas.

Our aims and objectives for approaching the schools was to raise awareness of carers, specifically looking at young carers in this case. We decided that in order to do so we would make direct contact with schools via email. The age target we looked at was 11-17. “A young carer becomes vulnerable when the level of care-giving and responsibility to the person in need of care becomes excessive or inappropriate for that child, risking impacting on his or her emotional or physical well-being or educational achievement and life chances”(ADASS/ADCS MOU 2009).

Due to the impact it has on a young carer’s education we felt that in getting into contact with schools we could improve the teachers’ knowledge of young carers and make them aware of the impact that being a carer can have on their education and the support that is out there for those that may be struggling. Our aim in speaking to the students themselves was to make them aware that they may be a carer as there are many who do not realise that the extra responsibility they have is regarded a caring role.

Not only did we want to present information on carers but also to introduce them to the Carers Centre. We felt that this would be beneficial because we were wanting to reach a target of 1,000 people that their awareness had been raised about carers in general, however we felt that relating this to the Carers Centre was important because they can be supported by the carers centre as we had gained information that the Carers Centre does have activities for them to get involved in. “Loss of opportunities to engage in ‘normal’ childhood activities may be conflated with a sense of loss of childhood in an abstract way, where young carers are positioned as having symbolically lost out in their childhood.” (O’Dell, L., Crafter, S., De Abreu, G., Cline, T. (2010) P644).

BusinessesOur initial idea when thinking about engaging businesses was to think big. The reasoning behind this was that we were trying to balance the need to reach our target with time management and businesses with large amounts of staff could help us to get to our target. Statistically one in eight people are carers so the probability of there being hidden carers in big organisations was high. Our research was based around establishing the names of the biggest businesses in the area (Daily Press 2014) and the amount of staff they employed. We began to research names and contact numbers and arranged a meeting with the Carers’ Centre to roll out this plan with them. During this meeting we discovered that the Carers’ Centre had begun to approach big businesses themselves to try to obtain sponsorship for a racing day event. Janine at the Carers’ Centre shared the document with us that showed which businesses had been contacted and the response so far. We added a business to the list but could see clearly that the likelihood of making significant headway with big businesses was remote and that we needed to rethink our approach. At this point we hit a wall of despondency and for a short time became unproductive, feeling that we were making no progress. Thankfully at this stage Janine made contact asking for an update and supporting us to focus on a specific and manageable number of businesses. She suggested that we could contact twenty businesses in the three weeks before we were to meet with her again and ten schools. This gave us the focus that we needed and jolted us into action. This is the point when we re-evaluated our approach and decided to go door to door to local businesses in Bath, and this is what we did. Our first visit involved us dropping the Carers’ Centre leaflet in to a shop, explaining why we were raising awareness and asking if we could make a follow up visit a few days after. This approach was extremely valuable to strengthen relationships within the group, however the results were mixed. Resources at the Carer’s Centre are precious and we respected this, therefore constantly collecting bundles of leaflets without seeing good results was not sensible. As a group we discussed which types of businesses it would be most useful to approach and why. We agreed to divide them up in the following way, for the following reasons:

Pharmacies: carers often pay regular visits to pharmacies as they are caring for people who require medication on a regular basis

Opticians: Older carers are likely to have issues with their sight and have an ongoing relationship with opticians

Chiropodists: due to possible long term health conditions of both carers and caree’s

Banks: this is often the first port of call when a person becomes a carer and experiences the financial strain of a restricted income

Letting agencies/ Estate agents: caring responsibilities can happen overnight and this change can lead to a family or individual needing a

Methods

bigger property. Letting agencies are likely to have carers as long term tenants

Charity shops: These shops often employ older staff and see regular faces, who stop for a chat

Job Centre/ Post Office: Places where carers may be identified when accessing services and taking care of finances and benefits.

Local pubs: possibly not the most obvious place to go but carers sometimes need a brake and some time to themselves. Bar staff are often shoulders to cry on and hear peoples stories

Hairdressers/Barbers: Just because someone is a carer it doesn’t mean that they can’t take some time for pampering, there is plenty of time for a chat and hairdressers see regular customers and build relationships with them

Miscellaneous small shops: Including craft shops, children’s clothes shops, pet shops and newsagents. Places customers visit on a regular basis and stop for a chat.

The original Carers’ Centre leaflet (Appendix 2) contains lots of information and is used by the centre at engagement events. We made a decision that we would scan and use only the section with the contact details on as this was a better use of resources and would not use up large quantities of leaflets. We made it clear that this was a condensed version of the leaflet and that it contained just the telephone number, address and website of the Carers’ Centre. (Appendix 3) This was left with the businesses so they could pass the details on to customers. We decided on as our method of research using both qualitative and quantitative data as we needed to collect proof that awareness had been raised and how. Our questionnaire (Appendix 4) was designed to be easily completed by us while on the premises of the business, using the information told to us during our discussion with the staff members on duty. The name of the business, amount of staff members on duty and the level of awareness raised was then recorded on a data base so that we could keep a running total of our target number and keep track of the businesses we had visited.

Schools

Reasons for targeting schools

After researching about Young Carers we believed that this would be an effective way of targeting this age group as they spend a considerable amount of time in school, and this is a place where they are in the same environment with those of their own age group. However we found that young carers can feel isolated because although they are in school with their peers they can miss out on the activities due to their responsibilities at home. “As a group of young people the participants all discussed the importance of friends and the ways in which friends may lose interest in a young carer who had little time to spend outside the house.” (O’Dell, L., Crafter, S., De Abreu, G., Cline, T. (2010) P652). It can be difficult for peers to understand

the role of a carer, however another reason for presenting to this age group is so that they can be aware of a carer around them and prevent young carers from feeling alone if they have the support from those around them.

There has been suggestions that those who are young carers are more likely to be a target of bullying. There are many ways that a child can be affected such as, psychologically, their own physical health can deteriorate, socially they can miss out and their education can be affected. “Crabtree and Warner (1999) found that 71 per cent of young carers were bullied.” (Dearden, C., Becker, S. 2002. P7). This is a vast amount of people affected and therefore we wanted to educate both the carers themselves and those who have limited knowledge about the impact of having a caring responsibility and be more aware of anti-bullying.

Education will be greatly affected with the research into lower paid jobs. “Many will find it difficult to enter the paid labour market if they have few, if any, educational qualifications. (Dearden and Becker, 2000).” (Franklin, B. 2002. P210). What we seen was an recurring factor was the level of support that had from teachers, as they were struggling yet there was no awareness that it was due to responsibilities at home, otherwise this could have been addressed. Due to the impact of not doing well in school this results in many leaving school with no prospects of what they would like to do.

From the perspective of those that are impacted, “More than half of the young carers surveyed felt unsupported or misunderstood by their teachers. Even more worryingly, 39% said that none of the teachers at their school were even aware of their caring role.” (Carers Centre BANES) This is a percentage that needs to be addressed, because students are very dependent on members of staff regarding their future and safety in general. If they are struggling with a responsibility at home it will be easier to get advice or support from someone who is aware of their circumstances. There may be teachers who spot signs of an individual who may be affected by something at home and being a young carer fits into this also.

From previous research that was done regarding the amount of awareness that teachers had about young carers proved that there was a need to raise awareness, “Young carers do not feel supported in school. This can impact on their attendance and behaviour as well as their concentration. Sometimes young carers are punished by teachers for issues relating carers are punished by teachers for issues relating to their caring role due to a lack of understanding amongst the teaching profession about the impact of caring on education.” (‘Be Bothered’. 2012. P5) This being the reason why we wanted to first speak to the teachers to evaluate their understanding and highlight the importance of being aware of the young carers that are in their schools. This is why we were passionate about getting into contact with schools because this would identify those who are need, whilst also recognising that there is support that the teachers can pass on to their pupils.

Young carers may not want to ask for help because they fear that they will be taken from their parents. “Frank (1995) comments on the embarrassment some young carers feel about their caring responsibilities, and the fear that their parent may be perceived as inadequate. Other young carers (like Will in Philip Pullman's novel) may be silenced by fear of inappropriate intervention as a result of disclosing their family situation.” (Lefevre, M. 2015). This is one of the reasons that a young carer may try to keep their responsibilities private because they don’t want to be seen as incapable of balancing home and school, however if the teachers were aware then this would help with their understanding as to why the child may feel pressure.

There are some issues with being able to identify young carers because many will want to keep their personal life private, even from professionals within their school as they feel that they can find ways of coping with this. However, this will show an impact on the individual whether or not they feel that they are dealing with this by themselves. There will be evidence within, “poor attendance, underachievement and bullying, with many young carers dropping out of school or achieving no qualifications.” (‘Be Bothered’. 2012. P8) If the teachers are aware that this may be the reasons for a child struggling rather than believing that they are underachieving due to lack of interest then this can be addressed.

We also wanted to show the young carers in a positive light as well for example; “Positive impacts included earlier maturity, learning to take responsibility, developing life-skills, and a close loving relationship with parents.” (Lefevre, M. 2015). We did not want to emphasise the struggles that young carers face as there are rewards for partaking in such a hands on responsibility. If there were students who are young carers, then we wanted to ensure that they were aware that this wasn’t just focusing on the negatives, but rather what they can achieve with support and how respected they should be for their role within the house.

Questions we wanted to ask

There were a range of questions we wanted to ask before continuing with our presentation to the children was the awareness that the teachers had. First of all we wanted to acknowledge whether they were aware of what a young carer was. When doing our research we found that there are many who are impacted by this responsibility, yet they themselves do not identify as a carer which would make it harder for teachers to also have awareness. When defining what a young carer is, we also emphasised the signs that would indicate they have a more significant responsibility at home.

The answer we wanted to find out from the presentation was whether this presentation had been affective and if the students had learnt anything from the presentation. Our aim was to ensure that this was age appropriate and able to raise awareness in a way that they would understand and take interest in. This is the reason why we chose the survey monkey as a way of collecting data because this

was done with a group of students and we hoped they would feel less pressure than being interviewed.

In raising awareness of what a young carer is we also wanted to know by the end of the presentation whether the students had knowledge on where they could receive help if they needed it.

Lastly we wanted to know whether those who are affected by the responsibilities of being a young carer felt that they were receiving the correct support- this being from the school and the carers centre if they have had previous contact, or going for extra support now they are aware of the services that are provided and feel confident that they would use them if needed.

As we divided the workload of our target audiences between business and schools, we took a different approach to help raise awareness among young people. To reach our aim of raising awareness of the role of carers we adapted our methods around our target audience of students between the ages of 11 and 17. We wanted to adopt a method which enabled us get across the message of young carers and the services that are available for them if they identified themselves as a young carer. Getting in contact with a local high schools we wanted to create a relationship between the schools and the carers’ centre so we arranged meetings with the schools where we were given the opportunity to emphasise the importance of raising awareness of the young carers to their pupils.

As highlighted by Connolly “conducting research on such sensitive topics and with groups that can be vulnerable and marginalized presents particular challenges and raises a number of ethical issues” (2003, p. 4) so we had to integrate the idea of ethical issues that may arise throughout the process of our community profiling project as we will be exploring a sensitive topic with vulnerable groups. Taking this into consideration when interacting with the pupils we wanted to use an approach that enabled us to present the role of carers, but we had to focus on the most effective approaches. After exploring the best ways of interacting with students we discovered that “the emotional aspect of the teacher-student relationship is important” (Ramsden, 1988). After exploring the variety of approaches we decided that we would create a presentation which met our aims for form tutors to present to their classes. The presentation will be sent to the schools that we contacted and it allowed the information to be dispersed around the all year groups, whereas if we had decided to do an assembly it would restrict our target audience as they only target a certain year group, We found that a presentation would be the best method to adopt as they are not time consuming and everyone would receive the same information. Although the presentation enabled us to effectively get our message across, as the tutors did not have an in depth knowledge of the role of young carers’ of the carers’ centre, if any students had any questions they would not be able to answer their queries.

As the aim of our project is to raise awareness of the role of a carer within the local community we also wanted to use a research method to show the statistics of the amount of awareness we raised amongst our target audience, young people. Kothari (2004) defines research methods as the techniques that are used by the researcher during the conduction of their research which enables them to collect data on their topic. When conducting research for our community profiling project we had to ensure that the methods we used would enable us to gather adequate information.

The carers’ centre gave us a list of schools to contact, so we had to think of a method that will be effective and allow us to distribute the information effectively but also a fast enough approach to gather efficient data. Taking these factors that we wanted to entail within our research we looked at a variety of research methods that would meet our needs.

When developing our knowledge of research methods we had had to look at the practical, ethical and theoretical factors of methods to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative methods and which is the best for us to use. In order to gain insight to the different types of research methods, we carried out a literature review on the three main methods we would consider.

After researching a range of methods to use, we discovered that interviews and focus groups fall under the qualitative research category, this approach is “the study of social phenomena” (Marshall & Rossman, 2015, p. 3). As qualitative data is based on these findings we looked into quantitative data, which, according to Byrne (2002) quantitative data enables the researcher to measure how as well as show the statistical data. Since our aim was to show how much awareness we had raised we thought that surveys would be the best way to show the figures.

Surveys are defined by Fowler as a research method that allows the researcher to gather data from a specific sample of large populations (2002). Doing a survey was a good way for us to research into a sensitive topic as only 99% of young carers’ care for a family member (Dearden & Becker, 2004) and family issues are usually kept in the private sphere of life.

When creating the survey for the schools, we had to take into consideration the diversity of the students, age, gender and ethnicity as we needed to “ensure that the format provides the same meaning for all respondents”. The survey that will be shown throughout the school will address students between the ages 11 and 17, as we know their vocabulary differs with age so we had to ensure that we kept the language of the survey simple enough for all students to understand.

The survey was made up of six questions that was completed by each form class once they finished the presentation, the questions were based on the presentation and if it aided their knowledge of the role of young carers’.

Through the research methods we used we wanted to meet our project aim of raising awareness of carers’ roles within the local community. The presentation and survey was the best method for us to adopt as they allowed us to get our message across by actually defining the role of young carers’ and how their role can inhibit their educational achievement as well as collect the data as proof of the amount of people we raised awareness amongst.

From our survey we discovered that prior to our presentation 100% of the students were not aware of the disadvantages that young carers’ come across and after the presentation 100% believed that the presentation aided to their knowledge of the role of young carers’.

A literature review was carried out at the beginning of the process, each member picked of handful of literature that we believed to be relevant and would broaden our knowledge surrounding carers alongside awareness raising. We used a variety of sources to aid our process including journals, book, websites, articles and reports. Alongside this we carried out research in community profiling, due to our group having a lack of knowledge on what community profiling actually was, whilst review relevant information on the group work process.

Hawtin, M. and Percy-Smith, J., 2007. Community Profiling, a Practical Guide. 2nd ed. Berkshire: Open University Press.

This piece of literature was used from the offset to give each member of the group a broad understanding of what community profiling entails. This was beneficial to help us understand what was expected of us, and why we were doing community profiling. This literature was beneficial to give us a platform of what avenues we could explore further. For example within this book there is a section regarding selecting methods for research, this gave us a simplified understanding of the options that were available to us, to raise awareness. This was a successful piece of literature to start our literature review.

Aldridge, J. and becker. S. 2003. Children caring for parents with mental illness: Perspectives of young carers, parents and professionals. Bristol: The Policy Press.

As the aim of our project is to raise awareness of what it is like to be a carer, it was good to find a piece of literature which emphasised all perspectives of all people that would be involved with an individual who suffers from a mental illness. Finding a piece of literature for all aspects of carers was a good starting point for us as a group as it enabled us to gain an insight of the carers feelings and whether or not they considered their duties to be the role of a carer or someone just looking after their loved one. This book focuses on all aspects, but focusing on the section that discussed the young carers’ perspectives who care for their parents with mental illnesses identifies and how their position in society changes as they take on the (‘adult-like’) role of a carer. By identifying this, it gives us a chance to explore this idea during our project to see how the carers that we will be interacting with feel.

Bolas, H., Wersch, A. and Flynn, D. 2007. The well-being of young people who care for a dependent relative: An interpretative phenomenological analysis. Psychology and Health, 22(7), 829-850.

As we narrowed down the two field we would be focusing on to schools and business, getting an in-depth knowledge of how being a young carer can impact their well-being was a way to gather an understanding and use when going into the schools. By finding this piece of literature it gave us statistics of the effect being a

Literature and Theory

young carer could be on their physical and psychological health; “it is estimated that between 19,000 and 51,000 young carers in the UK who are at increased risk of physical and psychological ill health” p.829. This literature review was a study to explore the personal experiences of young carers in relation to their well-being using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). By using semi-structured interviews in the study, the data discovered three themes: (1) what caring means; (2) isolation and distancing from others; and (3) integrating caring. The participants struggled to make sense of caring, found it relentless, overwhelming and frustrating.

Orme and Shemmings, (2010) Developing research based social work practice. Palgrave Macmillan.

This was useful in our group being able to explore the different research methods that can be utilised. Although we were not conducting research, this was beneficial in allowing us to see if any of the methods we could adapt and use to raise aware. Alongside this it allowed us to expand our knowledge on quantitative and qualitative data, and highlighted to us the importance of receiving both in order to receive rich data. We adapted this and ensured that when proving awareness had been raised we would use a mixture of data. Due to the fact that we were using questionnaires this book was helpful in allowing us to recognise the ethical issues we would have to be aware of when constructing out questionnaire.

Banescarerscentre.org.uk, 2015. If you look after someone, we are here for you - BANES Carers Centre. [online] Available from: http://www.banescarerscentre.org.uk/ [Accessed 16 Oct. 2014].

Alongside the traditional literature we used, we also used technological aids, such as the Carers’ Centre website. This was extremely beneficial in allowing us to have a deep and complex understanding of the Carers’ Centre and the services they provide, alongside a development in the realities of carers. The website provides an insight into the lives of carers, and therefore we utilised this information and used it when raising our own awareness. The website also highlighted the statistics surrounding carers, such as the number of carers or the estimation of hidden carers. A wide array of information we learned from this website was used when raising our awareness, and therefore ensured that our material was accurate.

Kenneth, E. 1995. Group-work – Expansion, Emotional wellbeing and professionalism.

We researched theories that highlighted the importance of emotional wellbeing within groups. It allowed us to understand the importance of emotional support, and therefore recognising this allowed us to support each other when having personal issues. We were very accepting of the fact that each member would have issues that would at time hindering us from contributing fully to the project, however we worked together closely and ensured that the individual felt supported at all times. It can be

suggested that putting importance on emotional wellbeing helped us to not have conflict within the group.

The-sra.org.uk, 2003. The SRA | Home of the Social Research Community. [online] Available from: http://the-sra.org.uk/ [Accessed 4 Jan. 2015].

This is a vital document to understand when conducting research as it outlines the obligations of the researchers. These obligations are to the subject of the research, the organisation the researchers are working for and to colleagues. The SRA details the importance of confidentiality and clarity in research, and that participants must be made aware of the nature of the study. The identities of the participants are to be kept confidential and the research should not mislead or contain hidden agendas that could pose a risk of harm to the participants. Clarifying this was central to conducting e research that was ethical and where there was negligible or no harm to participants and no deception.

Doel, M. and Sawdon, C., 1999. The essential groupworker. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

We researched literature that would inform us of group work at the beginning of our group formation in order to identify what we would need to do prior to working together. We used this literature as guidance for our approach, making us aware of interdependence. As an outline, we looked at the idea of ‘so you think you want to cowork?’ which had a layout of questions that we asked each other. These included acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses and what we expected from each other as a group. From this we were able to delegate specific roles in the group based on our abilities and this worked well, as we supported each other throughout if anyone was struggling we were understanding as this gave us the information that in order to have a successful group, we needed to communicate including our concerns and build a relationship from the offset.

1997, Adult children caring for elderly parents ‘need more help in coping with stress’ [Online]. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Available from: http://www.jrf.org.uk/media-centre/adult-children-caring-elderly-parents-need-more-help-coping-with-stress-366 [December 17th 2014].

As stated by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation “children are motivated by a strong sense of duty”, this idea made us want explore adult carers and see if the carers’ who did it out of duty gave a different caring role to the carers’ who done their role out of love. Being an adult carer and a young carer are similar in the ways that at both stages of life there is a sense of responsibility that has to be put on hold because of your role. Having this insight helped us throughout practice as the literature review was used as a hypothesis to build our knowledge around.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/media-centre/adult-children-caring-elderly-parents-need-more-help-coping-with-stress-366


Awareness Raising Process and Reflection

BusinessesThis project was one of adaptability and development of professionalism and involved facing our limitations and this was often a difficult and painful process. At varying times throughout our work we became despondent and lacking in energy and we needed to name and challenge this. As part of the group process we were comfortable enough to give honest feedback to each other and this helped a great deal in developing our learning. The value of peer assessment in conjunction with self-assessment is described by Boud (1995) who promotes the value of feedback if it is; “Specific, descriptive, predominantly non-judgemental in tone and form, directed towards the goals of the person receiving it and well timed.” (Boud 1995 p 201).

Before we embarked on this new approach we checked our knowledge with the information on the Carers Centre website and read more into the effects of isolation on carers as well as the effects on health of caring responsibilities, and what the barriers to identifying carers might be. In a 2014 BMC journal article Carduff et al outlines some of the reasons that carers remain isolated and unidentified by health care professionals. The article describes caring as being a sometimes gradual process that can absorb the carer, and that the carer does not often identify or prioritise their own needs. This complex relationship is one that needs to be further understood and supported so that the best interests of both the carer and the person being cared for can be looked after (Carduff et al 2014). As a direct consequence of caring responsibilities, 625,000 people in the U.K will suffer from stress related physical and mental ill health (Trevithick 2012), this knowledge emphasised the great need for carers to be recognised and supported. An important factor to consider when understanding the isolation of carers is social exclusion and discrimination. Attitudes towards older people and to people with disabilities can be subject to negative stereotypes and pre-conceptions which can further add to feelings of isolation (Thompson 2012).

What we wanted to convey to businesses is that a person can become a carer overnight and can struggle in this role, unrecognised and unsupported for years. These unseen and unsupported carers may well identify themselves during a conversation with the friendly face in the shop they regularly visit and we wanted the businesses to know that they could point a customer in the direction of the support they may badly need. Realistically, we understood that we needed to present the information in a way that targeted the type of business we were visiting, so we tailored it accordingly. When visiting banks we highlighted the financial strain that carers may find themselves under and how the Carers Centre can help by providing advice about what financial help is available. Talking to letting agents we emphasised the speed in which circumstances can change or deteriorate for carers and that their tenants could find themselves unable to cope and in need of additional

Process and

Reflection

help. This was an approach that we felt would personalise our research and help with information gathering as it would hopefully encourage a dialogue with the members of staff we were targeting. With this in mind we took into consideration how busy the shop was and that we needed to present ourselves in a respectful, friendly and professional manner that adequately represented the Carers’ Centre. One group member talked to the staff while the other made notes. During the conversation we outlined the nature of our research and what we hoped to achieve and we were careful to look for signs of discomfort that could raise ethical concerns. ( SRA REF) We were aware that we could identify carers or those who had cared for someone who had died. This is a sensitive and private issue and we were mindful of this from the start and our questionnaire reflected this by not including any intrusive questions.

SchoolsAt first we were going to take a section each and contact different places to raise awareness, however we realised that this was going to take a lot of time and therefore we decided that it would be best to take two different approaches and work in pairs to target these- we chose businesses and schools. This meant that we could have a sole focus that would make a greater impact. We felt that this would reach a wide audience because it is looking at both adult carers and young carers, after doing research on both sections we felt that this would be most influential.

The process was difficult in some stages. We went through some issues regarding how we were meant to collect the data. At the beginning we were instructed that for us to raise awareness we only had to tick a card that would show we raised awareness with someone, however half way through the process we were asked to have more proof of this, therefore we had to go back and design our own questionnaire that needed to be filled in, with additional comments from some of the businesses we spoke to.

With regards to the schools, we were very positive about going into schools because after doing research we were shocked at the amount of young carers that there are without recognition and we believed that this would be beneficial for schools to know about as it seems that there are some teachers are unaware of their pupils being carers and therefore this would allow the correct support to be put in place.

At first we felt that it would be best to go in to the schools and speak to the teachers firstly to see whether they themselves knew about the carers within their schools. As we were representing the carers centre we wanted to make sure that we were passing on the correct information, and we gave the details of the carers centre, including a small presentation so that they were aware of the approach we wanted to take in raising awareness to their pupils. The presentation included a video which we felt would be a good way of getting the attention of the pupils and show a representation of a young carer and hear it from their perspective as it is from someone of the same age.

After this day, we felt very passionate about going forward and made a presentation for the schools to pass on to their teacher. There were pros and cons in this situation as we made the decision to allow the schools themselves present it to their year groups. At the time we felt that this would be beneficial for the children as they had a relationship built with their teachers and they may feel more comfortable talking to them as this was a sensitive issue. However in some aspects if we were to do this differently we may have done the presentation to the classes ourselves as there were some interactive ideas we had yet this would have been unrealistic to ask the teachers who had limited knowledge to do with them.

The presentation that we made for the schools was confirmed by the carers centre because we wanted to make sure that they felt this was representing them in the way that they wanted. After having the confirmation we sent the presentation to two different schools along with a survey monkey that we made in order to collect data of how many children felt their awareness had been raised. This process took a long time as the schools did not get back to us for a while, which is understandable as they had planned in advance what they would do in their registration times prior to the year, therefore it was difficult to find a time when they would be able to show the presentation and complete the survey. We got feedback from one of the schools, however the other school has yet to get back to us. One of the reasons being that one of their pupils was in the attached video, which was an example of confidentiality. The pupil decided that they allowed the presentation to be done. Although we didn’t receive the feedback when we wanted we do feel that we have made significant progress as the school is in the process of doing so which will still have an impact on the awareness being raised for the carers centre. For the carers centre we have begun a relationship for them to build on with specific schools as they did show an interest in following up with the carers centre.

We believe that dividing into two sections was a good idea because it allowed us to have a sole focus on schools as we are hoping to have made an impact in some way. “16% of those who took part in our investigations saying that they were equipped with sound knowledge of how to identify and support young carers in school it seems that many teachers do not start off with knowledge of how to make sure that young carers are identified and supported in school.” (‘Be Bothered’. 2012. P8) So we feel that we have raised awareness for this to be addressed.

Group Process

With regards to the group dynamics, we all worked well together. We were able to build a relationship from the offset and it was made evident that we would support each other throughout. I believe that throughout the process there was no one used as a ‘scape goat’ as we all pulled our weight in some shape or form, and this was due to the honesty within our group. If an individual felt that they were struggling either personally or regarding the community profiling project, there was a mutual understanding and everyone in the group was able to feel comfortable disclosing

their feelings which we did before each meeting. This allowed for a support network that meant there was no miscommunication and a reason to feel that someone was not putting in effort at specific times.

We were able to work in pairs for our specific sections, yet were able to work as a group and discuss what was happening with each section and the improvements that needed to be made. If there was a time where someone was not able to complete some of the research there was another group member that was able to fill in. This was positive as it was very much a group effort and it made sure that when we had a target to finish something that we did this by the deadline without one person being left to do research on their own.

We had regular meetings to make sure that we were making progress, whilst all individually being able to voice ideas on how to help the process. We were able to distinguish between personal relationships and when we needed to be professional, which proved both to be important as there was a feeling of trust between us by the end.

Although it took us a while to grasp what we were researching and the methods we were going to use, we all worked well together and made sure that we were supporting each other. From the offset we had identified everyone’s strengths and weaknesses and what was expected from each member of the group which then ensured that we were all on the same wave length and understood our group process, from ‘So you think want to co-work?’. This was beneficial to do so as it then resulted in no miscommunication or disagreements because we had discussed this from the beginning and it actually made the group dynamics stronger.

Individual Reflections

Tracey - In facing my responsibilities to both the group and the project I needed to look at how I perceived myself and at ‘internal’ and ‘external’ self (Fook 2012). This involved a process of reflection on how I portrayed myself to others in comparison to how I really felt. I realised that they are far from harmonious. My feelings of inadequacy often came down to an uncomfortable reality that although I was conveying confidence and calmness, at times, inside I felt lost and that I was letting the project down in some way. I have learnt a valuable lesson from these feelings and understand now that admitting to confusion and doubt is humbling and honest and is strength not a weakness. This is a part of my professional development is to be expected and in the future I will embrace this and use it as an opportunity for learning and growth.

Abbie – Through this experience I have learned that I need to have more confidence in myself, and realise that I am capable of being professional and displaying the information I have learned accurately. Beforehand I did not believe I could do this, but having a chance to be a leader at point’s through-out this process has allowed me to recognise my own strengths.

Rachel – From the community profiling project I feel that I have learnt how to work in a group, as I had little experience of this. I was aware that there would be struggles and miscommunication at times, however this wasn’t experienced massively as we were very open and this prevented tension and a breakdown in relationships. I feel that I benefited from the research aspect as I learnt different types of methods to do so that would be affective. Overall, I feel that I have improved my communication skills within a group and when interacting with the public. From this I have realised that I need to work on building my confidence as prior to this I have been too critical of myself and my abilities.

Bobbi - We decided to make schools an area to explore for our community profiling project as this was a field that the centre had identified but did not have the opportunity to explore it further.

As we took this approach a bit late into our project, when gaining access to schools the response was a bit slow. After a while when we started to get positive feedback from schools we realised the good that this project was really doing. Now having the opportunity to reflect back I can acknowledge that my apprehensive attitude was because I was nervous that we might not reach our target.

Prior to going into schools to do the presentation we gained contact with a few schools that the carers centre had identified for us to see which ones would be interested. Knowing the importance of having a relationship with contacts, we met with staff members of each schools explaining the importance of students being aware of young carers, and if there were students who identified themselves as young carers’, being aware of the carers’ centre they will know the services available to them. Going in and explaining this to the schools was a good starting point for a relationship to be formed as they are now aware of the benefits of the carers’ centre.

As we were dealing with schools there are a variety of procedures that need to be followed before the tutors were able show the presentation. One issue we came across was the video that was in our presentation had one of the students from the schools in it. This delayed our progress which resulted in us only receiving 4 form classes filling out the surveys. Although this is seen as a confidentiality issue it has now emphasised the importance of the procedures that schools have to protect their students.

Overall the experience was a good way to build a relationship between the carers’ centre and schools for them to now explore the avenue further. Having the opportunity to do it again, presenting the presentation ourselves would be a better option as looking at the surveys there were questions asked by tutor classes that the teachers could not answer. This project has not only aided my knowledge of young carers’ but I am now aware that a majority of young carers’ do not identify themselves as a young carer because they do it out of love.

BUSINESS DATA

A graph to show the types of businesses that were approached when raising awareness

The first graph shows the type of businesses we approach when conducting our awareness raising. We categorised the businesses into 6 aspects. Overall we visited 92 businesses;

- 4 charity shops - 14 financial businesses, such as banks- 16 leisure businesses, such as hairdressers and pubs- 34 miscellaneous businesses, such as phone shops and high street retailers- 10 health businesses, such as opticians and pharmacy’s- 14 property businesses, such as letting agents

Data/Informa

tion

4%15%

17%

37%

11%

15%

CharityFinancialLeisureMiscellaneous HealthProperty

A graph to show the amount of staff within a business

12%

34%

26%

16%

8%4%

1234567

This graph highlights that when visiting businesses the number of staff we encountered varied from 1 person to 7 people.

1 person – 11 businesses2 people – 31 businesses3 people – 23 businesses 4 people – 14 businesses5 people – 7 businesses6 people – 4 businesses7 people – 2 businesses

Therefore showing that we were able to raise awareness with 269 individuals.

When raising awareness we produced a questionnaire that asked 5 questions.

1. Were you aware of the Carers’ Centre beforehand?2. Do you feel you awareness surrounding carers has improved? (On a scale of 1-5)3. Is it likely that you will promote awareness within the company, and promote the support that is available for carers?4. Would you suggest the carers centre to provide support if you were aware of an unrecognised carer?5. Additional comments

A graph to show the percentage of people who were aware of the Carers’ Centre beforehand

This graph highlights that 99 percent of the individuals we had contact with were aware of the Carers’ Centre before talking to us, and therefore highlights the importance of the work we were doing, as now a wide array of business have now gained a deeper in sight into carers within the community and in turn the support that the Carers Centre provide. The only organisation that was aware of the carers centre was Job Centre Plus, who suggested that Job Centre was aware but the staff we spoke to were not, therefore we were still able to raise awareness.

A graph to show the amount of awareness raised on a scale of 1-5.

1%

99%

YesNo

1% 9%

90%

12345

On the questionnaire that we produced, we asked the question; ‘Do you feel your awareness surrounding carers has improved?’ This was based on a scale of 1-5. 1 meaning that their awareness remained the same, where-as 5 suggested that their awareness had been raised greatly. 0 people suggested that their awareness had not been raised at all. 1 organisation put 3 on the scale. This was a local Job Centre Plus, who stated that they were aware the Job Centre had information regarding carers and the Carers’ Centre, however the individuals themselves did not know a great deal, therefore we were still able to raise some awareness. 8 businesses said their awareness had been raised and therefore put 4 on the scale. However 83 businesses stated that we had completely raised there awareness, as the majority of them had never heard of the Carers’ Centre, and lacked knowledge surrounding carers. Therefore we were able to raise a high amount of awareness.

A graph to show the percentage of businesses that stated they would be willing to promote their own awareness with the company

Yes No

This graph shows that out of the 92 businesses we approached, 100% of them stated that they would be willing to promote awareness within the company, and promote the support that is available for carers. However, it can be argued that the individuals may have felt pressured into saying yes, as it may have looked bad if they did not. Therefore you could argue that this statistic lacks validity.

A graph to show the businesses response to whether they would suggest the Carers’ Centre to an individual who they recognised to be a carer

Yes No

This graph shows that out of the 92 businesses we approached, 100% of them stated that they would be willing to suggest the Carers’ Centre to provide support if they were aware of a carer. However, as stated before, it can be argued that the individuals may have felt pressured into saying yes, as it may have looked bad if they did not. Therefore you could argue that this statistic lacks validity.

A graph to show the general additional comments we received from the businesses

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

This graph highlights the additional comments we received or made after visiting the businesses.

1. Spoken to staff regarding carers and the support the Carers’ Centre provides = 12

2. Stated they were willing to pass on the information to customers = 14

3. Stated they know customers or other staff who will benefit from the information= 11

4. Stated they had recommended customers to other agencies before they were aware of the Carers’ Centre= 2

5. No comments was given or made= 26

6. Stated they will/have put up the leaflet within the business= 21

7. Staff stated they were grateful for their awareness being raised= 15

8. Stated they were not aware of the Carers’ Centre beforehand= 8

9. Stated they were surprised at the amount of carers within the area= 4

10.Stated they would look at the website for more information= 2

11.Stated they were carers or being cared for, and now know where they can get support= 4

EMAIL DATA

The Carers’ Centre supplied us with an email list (See Appendix 5), holding all the organisations they had been in contact with over the last year. Therefore Abbie emailed each organisation to enquire whether they could remember the contact they had, in conjunction with how much they felt their awareness had been raised by. Once the data was collected Abbie transferred the information on to cards that the Carers’ Centre had supplied us with (See Appendix 6). Overall there were 169 contacts on the list.

A graph to show the number of responses given from the email list

This graph shows that out of the 169 organisations that were emailed in order to see if their awareness had been raised, we only received 53 responses.

A graph to show the amount of staff within the organisation

28%

6%

22%

22%

11%

11%

1234567

This graph highlights that when visiting businesses the number of staff we encountered varied from 1 person to 7 people.

94%

6%

RespondedNot Responded

1 person – 5 organisations2 people – 1 organisation3 people – 4 organisations 4 people – 4 organisations5 people – 2 organisations6 people – 0 organisations7 people – 1 organisation

A graph to show the amount of awareness raised on a scale of 1-5.

On the cards that the Carers’ Centre produced, they asked the question; ‘Do you feel your awareness surrounding carers has improved?’ This was based on a scale of 1-5. 1 meaning that their awareness remained the same, where-as 5 suggested that their awareness had been raised greatly. 2 organisations stated that their awareness was 3 on the scale. 9 organisations stated that their awareness was 4 on the scale and 7 organisations stated that their awareness had been improved greatly.

Some of the qualitative data we gathered due to the data been gathered through emails, were direct quotes from the organisations, stating that their awareness had been improved due to the Carers’ Centre. Some of the responses we received were;

“I often make referrals to the organisation. I have an increased awareness of what the centre does, especially with young carers.”

“I feel we are aware of the Carers’ Centre and what they can offer.”

“There was a very informative visit to the centre and my awareness was definitely raised.”

11%

50%

39% 12345

“I’d say our awareness has been raised by 5 given that we knew very little about the service prior to our meeting.”

This highlights that the Carers’ Centre is fulfilling their given criteria in raising awareness around carers, and the service that they provide. However, due to lack of response for a high percentage of organisations from the email list, it is difficult to have a thorough view of how much awareness has been raised.

SCHOOL DATA

Five schools were approached by Rachel and Bobbi, to find out if they would be willing to have us come in and raise awareness with their students. Two schools agreed to this, and therefore were approached with a PowerPoint, that the teachers could show their students, then fill out a survey on Survey Monkey (Ref). However, only one school responded. The results we received we a consensus from each form group within the school, however there were 30 students within each class.

A graph to show the number of schools who agreed to allow our community profiling group to raise awareness about carers

40%

60%

AgreedDisagreed/No response

This graph shows that out of the five schools approached only two agreed to allow us to raise awareness with them.

The results of our survey

A graph to show the school in which the participant attended

100%

Wellsway SchoolWrithlington School

This graph shows that there was no response from Wellsway School, and therefore every form group response was from Writhlington School.

A graph to show the year group of the participants involved

25%

25%25%

25%

Year 7Year 8Year 9Year 10Year 11

This graph shows that there were an equal amount of participants from years 7,8,10 and 11.

A graph to show whether or not the participants were aware of the Carers’ Centre before the presentation

100%

YesNo

This graph shows that none of the participants were aware of the Carers’ Centre before the presentation.

A graph to show the response from participants when asked if the presentation was helpful, on raising their awareness surrounding carers and

the Carers’ Centre

25%

75%

Very helpful A bit helpfulNot very helpfulNot helpful at all

This graph shows that ¾ of the participants found the PowerPoint to be a bit helpful in raising their awareness, and therefore ¼ found it very useful. Alongside this no participants found it to be unhelpful.

A graph to show the participants response, on ‘how has the presentation helped with your understanding of the role of a young carer?’

50%50%

A lot moreA bit moreNone at allExpected to learn more

This graph shows that participants either found the PowerPoint to help them a lot more or a bit more. Where-as none of the participants expected to learn more or learnt nothing at all.

A graph to show on a scale of 1-5 how much their awareness has been raised

75%

25%

12345

On the survey that we produced, we asked the question; ‘Do you feel your awareness surrounding carers has improved?’ This was based on a scale of 1-5. 1 meaning that their awareness remained the same, where-as 5 suggested that their awareness had been raised greatly. 75% stated 4 on the scale, where-as 25% stated 5.

A graph to show if the participants found the information that was presented to them was useful

Yes No

This graph shows that all four form groups found the presentation useful in raising their awareness around carers and the Carers’ Centre.

Alongside this, there was an opportunity for additional question to be asked on the survey. There was one response that stated;

‘Is there transport for young carers who do not live in Bath, so they can get to the Carers’ Centre?’

This highlights the fact that awareness has been raised and therefore queries are being made in regards to the support that carers can receive.

In conclusion we raised awareness in one school, and within that 4 tutor groups. Due to there being 30 students within each group, we raised awareness with 120 students with a school.

Engagement Team

The engagement team at the Carers’ Centre, sent us a spreadsheet that detailed the number of engagements they had per month. E.g. the number of times people told them their understanding of caring had increased as a result of working with them.

Whilst highlighting the method via which the engagement was achieved. This included;

- One of our volunteers- One of our carers- Talking to the public- Through their comms (e-bulletin and social media)- Their engagement team (talking to health and social care professionals)- Through the RUH

A graph to show the amount of awareness raised in YR1

39%

18%

39%

4%

VolunteersCommsRUHEngagementPublicCarers

This graph shows the amount of awareness raised for people during YR1 via each method;

Volunteers = 20Comms = 0RUH = 9Engagement = 20Public = 2Carers = 0

A graph to show the amount of awareness raised in December

15%

31%

17%

33%

4%


This graph shows the amount of awareness raised for people during December via each method;


A graph to show the amount of awareness raised in January

17%

5%

11%

44%

23%


This graph shows the amount of awareness raised for people during January via each method;


A graph to show the amount of awareness raised in February

1% 8%

24%

67%


This graph shows the amount of awareness raised for people during February via each method;


A graph to show the amount of awareness raised in March

4%

89%

8%


This graph shows the amount of awareness raised for people during March via each method;


A graph to show the amount of awareness raised in April

4%8%

88%


This graph shows the amount of awareness raised for people during April via each method;


A graph to show the distribution of awareness raising

55%

45% Engagement TeamCommunity Profiling

In conclusion our community profiling group approached nearly 100 business, and managed to raise awareness with 269 people. When approaching schools a total of 150 children had their awareness raised, whilst email responses showed 53 people had their awareness raised. In conjunction with this the engagement team from the Carers’ Centre raised awareness with 587 people. Therefore a total of 1059 people had their awareness raised. This shows that we managed to meet our target of a 1000 people.

Businesses

As shown above we visited nearly 100 businesses and we discovered that awareness about the lives of carers was very low. The majority of people had no idea that the amount of carers in Bath was so high and that many carers were still unsupported and unseen. Most businesses understood that being a carer was challenging but had low awareness of how isolating it can become. All of the businesses were happy to pass on the Carers’ Centre information to any customers that they may identify as carers, and were impressed with the variety of services offered by the Centre.

During our research we identified carers who told us:

" My husband has been looking after me, as I have been recovering from cancer, it is my first week back at work. It is still a daily struggle. I wish he had known about this place, and the support available."

- Shop assistant (Bath)

"I've just become a carer, for my husband. Everything has changed so quickly, the more people know about carers the better. I'm am glad I now know about what support is available."

-Shop assistant (Bath)

Alongside this businesses were glad to receive our information:

" I had a lovely old lady in at the beginning of the year, her sight was so bad that she was now practically blind. When she was chatting to me she told me that she was looking after her sister who had dementia, I am so glad that I now know about the support available for people"

- Optician (Bath)

"We see so many older people who seem to be struggling and really do not know where to go for advice and support. I am glad that me and my staff now know the strain of being a carer, and that we can give them the Carers' Centre information."

-Pharmacy (Bath)

This highlights how important it is for awareness to be raised around carers, as there is a chance that from our information someone may recognise themselves as a carer, or know someone who would benefit from the services provided to help carers. We learnt through this process that it was important to understand an ecological perspective when thinking about the isolation of unseen carers. Recognising the importance of a carers environment and how they may feel they fit

Analysis/

Learning

into it. Considering life stressors, coping strategies and how carers may now view their life course is an important tool that has helped us to relate the important questions underpinning our research. (Teater, 2010) (Germain and Gitterman, 2008).

Schools

The results of the school presentation was sent back from one school that completed a survey monkey from four different year groups. 120 children in total were involved, with 25% from year 7, year 8, year 10 and year 11.

From the results we seen that 100% of the children had no awareness of the carers centre prior to the presentation, which was a positive because we made sure that the presentation was easy to understand for those who had no awareness. We kept the information added simple yet important.

We then asked the question as to whether they felt that the presentation was helpful, 25% answered that it was very helpful, with the remaining 75% saying that it was a bit helpful. This showed that there was an impact made about young carers and seemed to prove that there was an interest taken.

With regards to having an understanding about what a young carer is, the results were divided 50/50 into have a lot more understanding and a bit more understanding. Again this shows that all the students that were given the presentation are now aware of what a young carer is and how to respond to this, with the hope that this will make a difference to those feeling isolated or bullied.

We then asked them to represent their understanding on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the highest. 75% voted 4 and the other 25% voting 5. From the data that we collected from the survey monkey so far has shown that the students felt that this was beneficial.

Overall for the presentation being helpful, 100% agreed that it was. This shows that all the pupils feel that the presentation was at a standard that they felt was easy to understand.

One of the responses from the survey monkey was asking whether there was available transport from Bath to the Carers Centre. From this question we think that this shows that the presentation has affected someone who is now aware that they are a young carer and would reach out for that support, which is great feedback.

From the information we believe that we have made an impact in raising awareness and have opened up opportunities for young carers to get support. We were surprised to see that there was no awareness of the Carers Centre from any of the pupils, which is shocking because statistics show that, “1 in 12 secondary age pupils.” (CARERS TRUST poster).

BusinessesThe issue of confidentiality was always central to our research. The Carers’ Centre website contains stories from carers and these are feely available to the public to read, so have therefore did not breach confidentiality issues when referred to by us during out time spent talking with the public. This was not the case with the carers we were able to identify during our research, and we were careful to only refer to them by the generic type of shop they worked in, being careful at all times not to put a description of them that could lead them to being identified without their knowledge or authorisation. The carers identified were issued with a full leaflet, as it contained a full outline of the services, the choice of whether to contact the centre is now theirs.

One issue was time management and how we would fit time in for the extensive research needed; this was time consuming and tiring. The way this was addressed was to approach it in a realistic and straight forward way. Although Bobbi and Rachel were concentrating on the school research they had gaps when they were waiting for engagement so they helped in the in town research. Tracey and Abbie remained in charge of all of the business data and of any adaption of styles of approach, and either Tracey or Abbie was always part of the trips to talk to businesses.

Communication with the Carers’ Centre was smooth and plentiful and we felt supported throughout, however there were occasionally blips that needed to be addressed. For example, it is inevitable that person issues will occur through-out that process which it did for Abbie. For reasons, she was unable to participate in the awareness raising, however she did not want to feel that she was not contributing so without discussing it first, she emailed the entire list of organisations that was originally given to them. Due to the fact that it had been previously agreed that our group would work with schools and businesses, the Carers’ Centre was confused as to why this had happened. They were very accepting of the matter, and it did manage to bring good results. There were many positive responses, that highlighted the fact that the Carers’ Centre were raising awareness and therefore this could be incorporated into our results as qualitative data.

Another issue occurred fairly early on in the research when we asked for clarification for what would be accepted as evidence of raised awareness and were shown a simple and basic card. This was a helpful tool to obtain information quickly and in large quantities so we decided to move forward with it. On our next meeting with the centre we were informed that more detail was needed to further describe how the participants felt their awareness had been raised. At this point we had only visited 37 businesses and were able to add extra data to a small percentage of them; however we felt that we had not properly understood from the initial meeting that this amount of detail was required. This was a minor and easily rectified issue and did not significantly affect our ability to achieve the aims given to us. In our need to adjust the depth of our research we were able to develop a research tool of our own and as

Issues, Ethics and Themes

a result obtain a richer narrative when engaging with the public and therefore a deeper level of learning, this emphasised to us that difficulties are very often great opportunities to grow and develop.

An ongoing theme throughout the project was one of engagement; there were levels to this that we were able to understand from a systems theory perspective (Payne, 2014). Understanding that systems work in conjunction with each other was vital to understand both the importance of engaging communities and the challenges that came with it. Businesses are organisations with their own sets of procedures and values and initially we had problems reaching them on a personal level. Our first approach of leaving a leaflet and returning was unsuccessful and on nearly every attempt of engagement we were misunderstood. We acknowledged that appearing with a clip board and a leaflet did convey that we were either conducting a lengthy survey or collecting money and that this metacommunication was being received before we even opened our mouth. What was a surprise to us is the way we were still misunderstood even when we explained our purpose, and reflecting on this we view as a case of miscommunication and a level of businesses being saturated by previous calls for fundraising help from local charities. Our adaption of approach coupled with a newly designed questionnaire, had much more success and we believe that this came from a confidence in communication that had developed from our first attempts and that our sharpened understanding was being mirrored by the businesses we were now speaking to (Copp, 2006).

SchoolsDue to the topic we were dealing with we were aware that it is a very sensitive topic which is why we decided the certain approaches we took with the presentation as this did not make any children feel uncomfortable having to discuss if they were a carer as we know that many that are considered young carers are genuinely caring for a family member which is fiercely private and they may not want to speak to strangers about this. We had a lot of data to collect in a short space of time which proved to be difficult as we didn’t realise the amount of time that this would take to collect the information for the carers centre. We had previous aims that we also wanted to raise awareness of the carers centre in the University itself however we didn’t realise at the time that the two sections we chose would be as time consuming and therefore felt that it would be better to focus our attention on these to get the best outcome.

The issues that we faced with this project was the adaption to the schools, when we were conducting our research prior to our meeting we were waiting on a time that suited the schools. Unfortunately there were many schools that did not respond due to their own time management and therefore this was one of the setbacks, however we used this as a way of channelling our focus on the two schools that were willing to allow us to do a presentation and get relevant feedback.

We felt that due to this time pressure for the schools that it would be best for us to approach the teachers in order to interact with them other than emails as they would see what our aims were and what we were trying to get across. This proved to be positive as they got into contact with us straight away to discuss when we would next pass on the presentation to them. From this reaction we were genuinely very excited about the outcome as we spent a considerable amount of time making sure that the presentation would be simple enough for the teachers to be able to present it themselves, we wanted to make sure that the students would be interested in what we were saying. Therefore we kept the information relevant and added in a video to explain this. We felt that in doing this we wanted to have confirmation from the project that they were happy for us to pass on the presentation and whether they wanted any of the information changed or improved as we had had miscommunication with the project beforehand regarding who we got in contact with and the confusion as to whether we were representing them therefore we felt that it was important to ensure that the carers centre knew what steps we were taking, however we also received good feedback from the carers centre to that they were happy for us to go ahead with it.

On reflection we feel that our outcome was positive, however we also felt that the section we chose to focus on did leave us unsure as to whether we would have the data collected in time for our presentation and final report. We did make a difference in the sense that the carers centre have now had contact with these specific schools and now can continue to raise awareness themselves as the teachers had taken an interest in the project.

This was a rewarding project and we feel it has been a valuable one, providing both learning opportunities and data that will be of ongoing use to the Carers’ Centre. Our original brief was to prove that awareness has been raised in 1000 people and we reached that target, however the learning and value of our work lies within how much we learned about ourselves, each other, carers and community spirit. Being part of the awareness raising was a humbling experience at times and we were proud to do it, despite the difficulties and frustrations along the way. It was useful to be able to understand that the frustration we were feeling at times was similar to how the team at the centre had felt when getting the information out to people, and to the carers who are trying to convey their needs to both professionals and to family and friends. This was a revelation to our group and emphasised systems theory which we had read about but had never seen in action. Carers need support as much as the people caring for them; communities are receptive to learning about carers as we, as students, were. Professional organisations adapt approaches to target different groups of people just as we had adapted our approaches to different types of business and to different age groups in schools. Seeing this as a whole it is clear to see that we all work together as a society to try to make systems work, however successful that proves to be is debatable but recognising that fact is a good starting point in understanding how to engage communities in a depth of understanding that will hopefully produce positive results. At this end point it is impossible to measure the impact of our awareness raising, all we can judge is how we were received by the community. It is heart-warming to have been received so positively and has left us hopeful that our work will help to identify more carers and lead them to seek the support they need. Analysing and evaluating our research we feel we have opened up some avenues for the Carers’ Centre to explore and take forward. Our recommendations are:

For the Carers’ Centre to use the presentation designed by us to reach as many school aged children as possible.

Establish, where possible a single point of contact with schools to improve communication and build ongoing relationships.

Look into ways of incorporating an awareness of young carers into anti-bullying campaigns; explore working with the Anti-Bullying Alliance (Anti-Bullying Alliance 2014).

Continue visiting local businesses, using the methods that have worked for us, explore the use of volunteers for this project.

Complete and submit the local charity grant form (See Appendix 7) enclosed with this report, specifying what the grant will be spent on (general donations are not made).

Think about engagement with local slimming groups such as Slimming World and Weight Watchers, an excellent area to explore as the age

Conclusion

range of members is wide, we have e mailed them but to date have received no response

Raise awareness with local solicitors who would undoubtedly come into contact with carers who are seeking power of attorney when family members no longer have capacity to make decisions.

Whenever possible continue to collect engagement data on the day of an event, this approach has produced the best outcome during our awareness raising.

It has been an honour to work for and on behalf of the Carers’ Centre and we are proud to have been part of such an incredible organisation that have treated us with tremendous warmth, respect and care. We will continue to speak up for carers and to let our own communities know that they are out there and in need of support.

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Appendices

I agree that we all participated equally through-out the project, alongside writing up the report. Abbie and Tracey specifically work on the business aspect, whilst Bobbi and Rachel work on the school aspect.

Final Statem

ent

XAbbie Meyrick

XTracey Branch

XRachel Dunn

XBobbi Allison

Documents

· Web view“A comprehensive description of the needs of a population that is defined, or defines itself, as a community, and the resources that exist within that community, carried