Carers Week 2013 takes place from Monday 10 to Sunday 16 June.
Carers Week is a UK-wide annual awareness campaign. Its aim is to improve the lives of carers and the people they care for. It does this by:
•Raising the profile of the role of caring in the national, regional and local media and encouraging groups and organisations to take part and organise events and activities.
•Helping the public identify themselves as carers and access the support, advice and information they need.
•Celebrating and recognise the contribution the UK’s 6.5 million carers make to the people they care for and their communities.
•Highlighting the challenges of caring and campaigning for sustainable funding for services and support for carers and the people they care for.
This year the theme for Carers Week is Prepared to Care? Every day at least 6,000 people start caring. Becoming a carer can impact significantly on a person’s life – it takes time, energy, can leave you isolated and can be costly.
Prepared to Care? – the 2013 Carers Week campaign –will focus on how the UK’s current carer population is coping, how effectively Government is supporting the growing numbers of carers, and whether the wider population is prepared for future caring responsibilities.
Through Prepared to Care? Carers Week will highlight the impact of caring on daily life and, with an ageing population and higher incidence of disability and serious illness, encourage the public to think whether they could manage a caring role.
Prepared to Care? will also help those already caring to make sure they are accessing all the practical and emotional support they need to care safely and look after themselves.
Carers Week 2013 is being delivered by a partnership of national charities: Age UK, Carers Trust, Carers UK, Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie Cancer Care, MS Society and Parkinson’s UK. It is supported by Independent Age, the Stroke Association and Carewell.
In 2013 the campaign is also being sponsored by Sainsbury's and Skills for Care.
