Transcript

GAIL:

Small groups where possible with cake and coffee or tea is what we found works really best. Bringing them together to break the isolation if we can, but also helping them to have those conversations, again, with their peer group. Providing the information. Sometimes they just need a fact sheet. I did have one family carer that-- well, it was a couple. They asked us to if we could put the Care Act on one page, which no, was the answer to that. A bit difficult.

We managed to get it down to 10 pages, though really, really punchy. These are the things that you need to do. So they want that key information. They want it in very-- don’t overload people with jargon. All these things that have jargon busters. We do it because we feel like we have to, but just don’t use it. Just speak plain English would be my suggestion to anyone writing anything for anyone. Keep it plain language and lose the jargon. So that is key.

Sometimes I think supporting other people-- well, one of the things that we could do is just be with that person sometimes. So when there’s an assessment, we have a small family support service where we can kind of say, well, we’ll send somebody with you. I know that’s not going to be available everywhere, but saying to the family carer that they need-- Just take somebody with you. If you’re having a meeting with someone, don’t go on your own.

Get everything in writing. Back it up. Don’t rely on a phone call for anything. Get them to write it down. And just say, look, your memory is not what it was. Mine certainly isn’t. So get them to write it down and get everything in writing, but back everything up, I think, as well. Again, it’s that knowledge is power stuff. So whatever information that can be provided to any carer. We found doing some of the big events that we’ve done through our elder carers project, we found that younger families came along to that.

So people in their 40s, 50s came along to start thinking ahead. And I think some of the older carers found that intergenerational approach really positive. So they liked being with some of the younger families. So they felt that they’re tired of fighting, so actually having younger parents that could do that around them was really good. So we encourage that in everything that we do.