Shared Care Scotland is a charity whose vision is a Scotland where everyone who receives support or provides unpaid care can live a full and satisfying life, with the assistance they need to take regular, quality breaks from the everyday demands of their caring routines.
In Scotland it is estimated there are over 650,000 people who care for a family member, partner or friend, who may be ill, disabled, or dependent on drugs or alcohol. Short breaks provide a much needed release from the physical and emotional demands of the caring situation and help promote health and wellbeing.
I was approached in early 2020 to work with Shared Care Scotland’s small but highly dedicated team to develop a toolkit to help local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships work through the challenges preventing carers from accessing the breaks they need and to establish the conditions in local communities to provide carers with good, and improving opportunities to access breaks from caring.
I presented the team with several design options then developed the preferred approach and fully paginated their resources across 48 A4 landscape pages.
The final published guide now helps commissioners, procurement teams, locality leads and practice leads to meet the challenge (and duty) of ensuring variety and choice. It is currently being used for reflection and planning, and to help facilitate and stimulate conversations.
You can view and download the final document, and find out more about Shared Care Scotland’s work on their website.
