Carer Engagement Insights

In 2024, Age Scotland’s Dementia Training team was proud to be awarded funding from the National Lottery Community Fund. This generous support has allowed us to expand and enhance our work with unpaid carers of people living with dementia, empowering them with the tools, knowledge, and confidence they need to navigate their caring journey.

Thanks to this funding, we’ve continued to deliver our popular Carers’ Rights Workshops, which provide vital information about the rights and support available to unpaid carers. These sessions are offered to individuals, community groups, and carer organisations across Scotland, equipping them with practical knowledge to better advocate for themselves and those they care for.

But we know there’s more to be done. Unpaid carers are telling us that existing training and support systems still leave significant gaps, leaving them feeling isolated and unprepared.

Listening to Carers’ Voices

To better understand these challenges, we conducted a series of carer engagement sessions across Scotland. These discussions have been crucial in shaping our understanding of the issues faced by carers and the additional support they need.

Key themes emerged during these sessions, including:

• A lack of accessible, centralised information for carers.
• Insufficient post-diagnostic support tailored to carers.
• The need for more proactive help before carers reach a crisis point.

As one carer poignantly described:

“Our lives have been turned upside down, but who’s looking after us?”

The findings from these sessions are summarised in our Carer Engagement Report, which provides valuable insights into the experiences of unpaid carers. This report is a call to action for policymakers and service providers alike.

Driving Change for Carers

In addition to informing our training work, the findings from the engagement sessions shaped our letter to MSPs, calling for urgent action to address the longstanding gaps in support for unpaid carers.

Our letter outlines critical recommendations, including improving post-diagnostic support and addressing issues within the social security system. We believe these changes are essential to ensuring carers’ rights are upheld and their invaluable contributions recognised.

Developing New Workshops

Looking ahead, we will use the insights gained from our engagement sessions to create new workshops tailored to the needs of carers. By addressing the gaps they’ve identified, we aim to provide more meaningful and impactful training opportunities for those navigating the challenges of unpaid care.