At Carers Matter Norfolk, our vision is to create a world where carers are recognised, supported, valued and empowered to care with confidence and improve their health and wellbeing. Your support can help us make that a reality.
Who is a carer?
A carer is someone who provides unpaid care and support to a family member or friend who would not be able to cope without this support, due to illness, disability, mental ill health or an addiction .
Three in five people within the UK will become a carer at some point in their lives. Nearly 1 in 8 of Norfolk’s population are caring and others care at a distance for people living in the county.
With the unpaid care provided by the nations’ carers currently worth an estimated £132bn per year- considerably more than total spending on the NHS in England- caring can affect anyone, at anytime in their lives, no matter who they are or what they do. Caring can have a big impact on everyday life, and each day, thousands struggle to get the support that they desperately need.
How Carers Matter Norfolk can help you
Carers Matter Norfolk is the countywide service funded by Norfolk County Council and the NHS to provide support to unpaid carers. All services are free and available to people aged 18+ caring for someone aged 18+. Support is available to those caring for someone living in Norfolk, whether the carer lives in the county or elsewhere (caring at a distance). Carers Matter Norfolk is a Carer-led service, putting you at the heart of everything that we do. The service offer is flexible in approach and tailored to meet what matters to you as an individual carer.
At a time that suits you in your caring role, you can complete a carers assessment, a strengths-based tool, which helps you to explore what’s working well; your circles / networks of support (e.g. family, friends, neighbours and local community); what’s important to them, the people in your circle of support. It also explores what could be improved, and the possible solutions to achieve what matters to you.
Based on this, together we will also look at all aspects of your health and wellbeing, from access to work, education, leisure and volunteering and time for yourself, to social and economic, physical, mental health and emotional wellbeing and personal and family relationships. From this, a support plan will be developed that focuses on the outcomes that you want to achieve.
Carers Matter Norfolk can provide you with information, advice, listening and practical support, advocacy and representation (only where you can’t advocate for yourself), education and training support.
For detailed information on each of our services, please click the links below:
For more information on local Carers Peer Support Groups click here.
Carers Matter Norfolk – who we are
Carers Matter Norfolk is a partnership of organisations led by Bridges Outcome Partnerships. The other partners are Caring Together, Voluntary Norfolk and Norfolk & Suffolk Care Support Ltd. The partnership came together in May 2017 to successfully bid for the ‘Supporting Unpaid Carers in Norfolk’ contract, now known as Carers Matter Norfolk. Caring Together joined the partnership in September 2020.
Carers Matters Norfolk is the umbrella brand for the services delivered by the four partners through the Supporting Unpaid Carers in Norfolk contract funded by Norfolk County Council and Norfolk’s NHS Clinical Commissioning Group. Carers Matter Norfolk is delivered as an integrated service across all partners with a single management team and one database. We manage and take decisions as a Partnership Steering Group, which brings together the five Partner Leads, our Service Manager and five carers. The Performance and Development Group, led and chaired by carers, looks at how effective we are, challenges us to do better and helps us to plan future service development.
We hope in time that the Carers Matter branding and range of services will be extended to include more support for carers in Norfolk and beyond.