Summary

You have now completed Session 5, the final session of Caring_Counts_in_the_Workplace. This session focused on how to create an action plan for a Carer Positive workplace and it helped you reflect on your learning and what difference this may make to your practice.

Caring_Counts_in_the_Workplace has addressed some questions you may have had about the challenges faced by the carers in your workforce as they juggle their caring role with other aspects of their life, including work, study and leisure time. As you reflected on the experiences of the carers you met during the course, you may even have identified that you also have a caring role.

You have considered the implications for employees who have caring responsibilities and in turn you have reflected on the implications for your own practice, for example your role in identifying and supporting carers in your workforce. You completed the course by creating an action plan to develop your own practice, together with recommendations to influence policy and practice at a strategic level within your organisation.

You may have worked through this course on your own, or with colleagues in a group context. Or the process might have involved a bit of both. You may have had the opportunity to discuss some of the ideas in the course, and the reflections shared by the carers you’ve met here.

Your Reflection Log is a record of your self-reflection and you could use this as a basis for further discussion with colleagues.

Quiz

To consolidate your reflective learning on this part of the course you may like to complete the following quiz [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . You will need to pass this quiz in order to gain your digital badge.

Quiz 5 provides evidence that you are achieving the following learning outcomes:

  • a clearer understanding of the experiences of carers
  • an understanding of carers’ motivations to return to work, or to balance employment with their caring role
  • an awareness of the factors that may help or hinder carers who are in paid employment, and the support available to them
  • an understanding of your role, and your organisation’s role, in supporting carers in your workforce
  • insight to help promote early identification of carers as part of your support and supervision
  • an awareness of how workplace policies and practice can help ensure carers don’t experience discrimination at work
  • the ability to identify practical steps to take to foster a Carer Positive workplace
  • an understanding of how the Core Principles for Working with Carers and Young Carers are applicable in your practice.

The point we want to reinforce in this quiz is that there are multiple and varied approaches to supporting carers in the workplace, and that context is important in relating the hypothetical example of Dean to your own working environment. Therefore, for assessment purposes, in this quiz we have sometimes asked you to identify the least appropriate means of support in a given situation rather than assuming there is a ‘correct’ answer.

By studying this course, completing the optional quizzes and meeting the required completion criteria you will have gained the following Caring_Counts_in_the_Workplace digital badge.

Figure 5.4 Course badge

We hope you have enjoyed working through the course and have learned a little bit more about yourself, as well as gaining ideas for developing additional workplace support for carers within your organisation. Everyone has transferable skills, abilities and qualities, as well as personal strengths, but we sometimes need help in recognising and using these. This is true for carers and non-carers alike!

If you need a reminder about the quizzes and the criteria for getting a badge, visit How to complete the course quizzes.

We’d like your feedback on Caring_Counts_in_the_Workplace and to find out about your experience of using the course, so please complete our feedback survey. It shouldn’t take you long to complete and it would be very helpful to us in terms of informing future developments.

Core Principles for Working with Carers and Young Carers

Acknowledgements