Carers Trust

KCCF has supported the Trust since 2019, most recently through a three year strategic partnership, awarded in January 2023.

Carers Trust’s network of local carer organisations stretches from the Shetland Isles to the tip of Cornwall and across Wales and currently support carers across 81% of local authorities across England, Wales and Scotland. Carer centre locations range from remote rural areas to large urban centres. Unpaid carers can be of all ages, backgrounds and economic circumstances, and they care for people with a wide variety of conditions, so we offer a range of services and support that can be tailored to meet this diversity of needs.

KCCF’s strategic partnership grant with the Carers Trust has established an integrated strategy for carer involvement across their operations and governance. This year the charity has made great strides in providing opportunities for unpaid carers to get involved in a range of activities across the charity such as programme design, developing policy asks and decision making at governance level.

One of the key successes has been the establishment of a Youth Advisory Panel, representing the views and needs of young carers under 25 years old. With over 50 members, the Youth Advisory Panel has been involved in planning and delivering the Young Carer Action Day, helped shape and deliver a research project looking at the long-term effects of being a young carer in collaboration with St George’s Hospital and University College London, and been directly involved in a carer recruitment panel for new Carers Trust staff and Trustees.

Malcolm, a volunteer spokesperson for the Carers Trust, said:

I feel a world away from the person I was, only a few years ago, when I first met Nem Pullar at Harrow Carers. Nem and his colleagues across all 33 London boroughs helped many people just like me, who find themselves in challenging personal circumstances as unpaid carers. As my personal employment advisor, he reminded me to keep focused on myself as well as the recovery of the person I care for.

Through Carers Trust Network Partners (like Harrow Carers), unpaid carers across London are helped to move into, or closer to, employment. The team’s dedication, support and understanding has had a huge impact, transforming the lives and life opportunities of hundreds of unpaid carers like me in London. We all desperately needed support to rebalance each of our caring roles and rediscover our sense of fulfilment and purpose.

Since then, I’ve returned to working in the industry I love and helped set up the new Film & TV Carers Club, run by carers for carers working in the film and TV industry.

King Charles III Charitable Fund financially supports the Carers Trust, to help us deepen the involvement of unpaid carers like myself, in all areas of our work so that Carers’ voices are at the heart of everything we do. When for so many, it still sometimes feels, that being an unpaid carer, is being one of the last invisible, disadvantaged, marginalized, minorities.

So thank you again for acknowledging that our voices are heard. I hope in some modest way, to carry the KCCF’s message of support and understanding, which is needed more than ever, to bring about the changes needed to support and transform the lives and millions of unpaid family carers.