An estimated one in ten people in Scotland are providing unpaid care. Tom Mohan, who delivers Health in Mind’s Carer Support Service in Edinburgh, says it’s vital to help carers find time to look after themselves as well as others.
If I had to explain the importance of the Carer Support service in one word, I’d say ‘respite’. The role of a carer is often a 24/7 job, and with all day every day spent supporting others, it can be hard to spend any time at all thinking about yourself and your own needs.
We all need some time in the day to focus on ourselves. A lot of us find that difficult, even without caring responsibilities, but when you’re trying to balance that against looking after someone else as well, it’s so tiring, it’s really hard. Often, if you get five minutes to yourself, you don’t want to work on yourself or your needs – you just want to collapse and watch TV. When all your energy goes into supporting someone else, you’re grabbing any chance to rest and recover your energy.
Making space for yourself
Self-compassion can be hard, and when someone else is relying on you, you may not give yourself much room to be a person with your own needs. Your own problems don’t go away when you take someone else’s care on, and caring often comes with its own big emotional impacts to process – but all those things take time and energy. When so much of your time is devoted to someone else, it can feel impossible to even know where to start.
One of the most important things that Carer Support can do for people is to carve out some time that’s just for the carer and their own needs. Even just getting out of the house can be a huge thing – when someone comes to see us, that can be a couple of hours – a bus ride and a half-hour session – where they can put down their caring responsibilities and just focus on themselves.
In our one-on-one sessions, we give people some time to sit and offload, whatever’s on their mind. When it feels impossible to know where to start, we can help make things easier. Especially for newer carers, but honestly for everyone, one of the biggest sticking points can be knowing where to go for support, or whether support is even available. In our sessions, I’ll often help people build support plans, and connect them with help for what they’re dealing with. We can work on breaking things down, and building a plan for ways to feel more in control.
We also run peer support groups regularly across the city, which are really valuable. However different your caring roles are, being around other people who understand what it is to give so much of your time to someone can be huge. Caring can be very isolating, and especially for newer carers, having those opportunities to connect can give you the chance to realise, ‘oh, wow, it’s not just me. I’m not on my own.’
Keeping it flexible
People are dealing with a huge variety of types and levels of care role, whether they’re providing round-the-clock care in their own home or have stepped back slightly. We work with people at every stage in their journey, whether they’re just taking on caring for someone or have been someone’s primary carer for decades, or maybe used to be a primary carer but have taken a step back. Even when things aren’t as intense as they used to be, the effects are still there, and we’re here to support with that.
What people need from support is dependent on the situation, and on the person. Some people are looking for space to be out in the community with other carers and to get some mutual support and advice; other people might want a space that’s not about caring, where they can get away from it for a while. Often, it’s a mix, which is why they might come to one-to-one sessions to offload and talk about other concerns, and then also attend groups to share with other carers.
How can services be more accessible for carers?
Carers do incredible things for other people, but they deserve support for themselves as well. There are a lot of extra barriers when it comes to accessing support, and it’s important that support services are actively working to be as accessible as possible to people dealing with care responsibilities.
Time and energy are a big challenge. A carer’s schedule is often so unpredictable, and even an hour can be a lot to ask. As service providers, we have to be able to be flexible, and to understand what we’re asking when we schedule someone in for a meeting.
Another challenge is helping people reach out in the first place. Even finding out at support’s available can be hard, and take up the time and energy that’s already in short supply. Many people may not even think of themselves as carers – just consider their care role as part of being a partner or a parent or a son/daughter – and certainly haven’t thought of reaching out for specialist support.
Self-worth and self-belief can be an issue too – you might already have convinced yourself that struggling or feeling overwhelmed are evidence that you’re not good enough, when actually having responsibility for someone’s care often just is overwhelming.
As service providers, we always need to be working to help connect people to support that could help them. And, with carers’ time and energy in such short supply, anything we can do to make it easier to access support can make a big difference.
Carers – whatever their situation – are giving a lot of themselves to other people’s wellbeing. As a sector, we have to do everything we can to give them some care back.
Sponsor a Connection
Sometimes, it makes all the difference to talk to someone who knows what you’re going through – especially if, as carers often do, you’re facing extra challenges to your mental health that people who haven’t lived it may not understand.
By sponsoring a connection this summer, you can help someone get matched with a peer volunteer who can share their experience, advice and time.