As Blackpool Carers Centre marks its 20th anniversary, the charity is celebrating two decades of supporting unpaid carers with the launch of a brand new look.

The refreshed branding symbolises both the organisation’s proud history and its ambition to continue improving life for carers and their families across Blackpool.

The new identity retains the familiar colour palette that carers and partners associate with the Centre but introduces a reimagined design, that feels inclusive and full of energy. The updated logo places carers at its heart, providing a greater recognition of the focus of the organisation and a more recognisable brand to build awareness of the rights, needs and presence of carers in Blackpool.

Tom McMurdo, Director of Finance and Resources, said: “Our 20th anniversary felt like the perfect moment to reflect on how far we’ve come and to look ahead to the next chapter. The new branding captures our passion, quality and respect; values that have guided us well, in addition to helping us connect with new generations of carers, partners and supporters.”

The new identity will be rolled out across all communications, including a redesigned website, social media and printed materials, creating a cohesive and recognisable presence across the community. As the Centre celebrates this important milestone, one thing remains constant; a deep commitment to creating A Better Life for Carers, today and for the next 20 years.

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On Thursday 15th June 2023, Blackpool Carers Centre hosted the highly anticipated Children Who Care Too Conference at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool. The event brought together professionals, educators, and community members to shine a spotlight on the experiences and needs of young carers. With esteemed speakers and insightful discussions, the conference served as a platform to raise awareness, share knowledge, and strengthen support for young carers.

The conference commenced with an enlightening keynote address by Professor Saul Becker, a renowned expert in young carers’ research and the President of Blackpool Carers Centre.  Professor Becker delved into the unique challenges faced by young carers, highlighting the importance of recognising their invaluable contributions and addressing their specific needs. His passionate advocacy for effective young carers support resonated deeply with the audience, setting the tone for the impactful discussions that followed. Professor Becker was able to provide a clear view of the number of young carers nationally and internationally as well as the differing levels of support and recognition on offer in various localities.

Tom McMurdo, Director of Finance and Resources at Blackpool Carers Centre, provided vital information on the current landscape of young carers in Blackpool. Sharing the unique challenges in Blackpool and the numbers of young carers in the town; he was able to bring the national and international picture into sharp focus locally. Tom showed the stark disparity between the numbers of young carers in Blackpool according to different sources, with the number identified through the recent School Census around 20x lower than the number in contact with the service.

The conference also provided an opportunity for Sarah Dunn, Child Protection and Attendance Officer and Susan Sayers, Family Engagement Officer at Layton School to share their experiences of working in collaboration with Blackpool Carers Centre to support young carers within the school setting. They highlighted the positive impact of providing targeted interventions, such as support groups, to ensure young carers feel understood, validated, and equipped with the tools to succeed both academically and emotionally.

After a rather exceptional lunch, delegates were afforded the opportunity to visit a variety of workshops with the young carers team. These workshops focused on Impact, the Family Focus Project and the identification of young carers, providing attendees a holistic view of the model of support employed by Blackpool Carers Centre.

The final speaker of the day was Suzanne Robertson, Service Manager Early Help & Support Services at Blackpool Council. Suzanne discussed the general priorities of Early Help and the recent introduction within their team of a co-located Link Worker from Blackpool Carers Centre. This commitment signifies their recognition of the vital role these link workers play in providing essential support and guidance to young carers and their families. The link worker’s presence will undoubtedly strengthen the network of support available and enable early intervention to mitigate the potential long-term consequences of caring responsibilities.

The Children Who Care Too conference was a resounding success, bringing together passionate individuals dedicated to improving the lives of young carers in Blackpool and across the country.

Through events like this, Blackpool Carers Centre continues to foster partnerships, raise awareness, and advocate for policy changes that enhance the lives of young carers. With a renewed sense of purpose and a strengthened network of support, we can collectively ensure that young carers receive the recognition, understanding, and resources they deserve to thrive in their caring roles and beyond.

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This where Blackpool Carers’ Caring Corporate Programme can help.

Becoming a Caring Corporate with Blackpool Carers will help you to identify carers, support them to access appropriate support at the right time and improve staff retention, recruitment and wellbeing.

Caring can have a lasting and powerful impact on so many aspects of life. It is both rewarding and demanding, and support from employers who work with Blackpool Carers means that carers can continue to be valued and committed employees whilst also continuing to care.

Continuing to work, is vital to many carers. It gives them a sense of routine and identity, increasing their self esteem and reducing isolation.

Many local business have become Caring Corporates and we are absolutely thrilled to announce that last year, they raised a staggering £60,000 plus, to help to make a better life for carers in our community. We would like to say thank you so much for all your support and we look forward to working with you again this year…you are all amazing!

Our Caring Corporates are:

• Beaverbrooks The Jewellers
• Bernie Atherton Carpets Ltd
• Blackpool Skip Hire
• Card Saver
• Chadwick Insurances
• Eric Wright Group
• FM Electrical
• Glasdon
• Greenlight Group
• Imperial Hotel
• InXpress
• Liberty’s Hotel
• Lowland Farm Alpacas
• Spire Fylde Coast Hospital

The photos below show some of our wonderful Caring Corporates with their generous donation cheques.

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CLICK HERE to download our Caring Corporate Information leaflet and find out more about working in partnership with Blackpool Carers and benefits for you and your employees.

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Worshipful Master (WM), Jeff Lucas, along with members of the lodge, Allan Lock and Chris Tittley, joined John Topping (Trustee of Blackpool Carers Centre) and Jeff’s daughter Debbie and grandson Loukas for a tour of Beaverbrooks House. Terry explained the work of the carers centre and highlighted the considerable funds needed annually to support over 8,000 young and adult carers in Blackpool.

Debbie works for SR8 Medical which has delivered free first aid training to our young carers. One of the trainers, Paul Wharton-Hardman is the WM of Leyland St Andrew`s Lodge No. 7391.

Over the years, Terry has visited a number of Fylde Coast lodges together with young carers and those who are cared for, so that a better appreciation and awareness can be gained of the daily challenges faced by the young carers, some as young as five years of age.

We would like to say thank you to all members of The Dona Conferentes Lodge No 9392 for their kind donations and for taking the time to come and visit us, to see first-hand the difference their donations make to our carers.

Pictured from left to right, are: John Topping, Terry Hodkinson, Jeff Lucas, Chris Tittley, Debbie Strouthos (SR8 Medical) and Allan Lock.

CLICK HERE to read the full article on the West Lancashire Freemasons website.

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by Faye Atherton, Young Carers Director

I write funding bids, I write monitoring reports…round and round we go chasing the money to continue, what I believe, is essential work with Blackpool’s carers and their families who need support to just get by. I use the lingo, talking about ‘interventions’, ‘service users’, ‘outcomes’, ‘engagement’, ‘ impact’, ‘key performance indicators’, but amongst all of this, the intangible and most human core of what we do is somehow lost in translation. Swept up in a swirl of justification for the existence of charities such as ours; why are we needed?

Are we REALLY needed? How much money do we save councils, CCGs and the like, in the long run?  These are difficult questions to give quantifiable answers to, ‘it’s witchcraft’ is an often used phrase!  This treadmill is tiring and can move our focus away from the reason why we want to help people, if we are not careful, trying to fit with the funding landscape rather than fit the needs of the people we are there to help.

In all of our bids and reports we refer to our approach to support as ‘walking alongside’ the people we work with but I’m not sure that this term is fully understood or appreciated for the way in which it works and the dedication that it demands of our teams. To work with families experiencing unimaginable, complex and often unending challenges takes tenacity and skill. Many of our families have a fear of ‘agencies’, with faceless workers floating in and out of their lives either telling them what to do and where they’ve gone wrong or over-promising and ultimately under delivering, or even worse, they visit once, never to be seen again.

We put carers at the centre of the support: We ‘have their back’

In walking alongside families, we put them in the centre of the support, after all, they are the experts in their lives, they live it every day.  They tell us what works in their lives (we can always find something!) but also where the problems lie and what they would like help to change. It is within this approach that the human stories emerge, the trust develops knowing that they are in charge and can direct their support.

For many, they have not felt in control of their lives for a long time, if ever, so for us to be there to serve them and want what is best for them gives power to the bonds that we forge. This rapport strengthens our relationships and provides reassurance that we ‘have their back’ but also that, when we need to, we will challenge them, always with their best interests at the core and from a position of care.  We see our roles as a privilege; to be let into families lives, to have more than a glimpse at what home and family means to them, to share in their joys, alongside their deepest sadness, is part of the experience.

And yes, we know all about professional boundaries and we maintain these but sometimes picking the phone up to check in just because you know that it’s one of the children’s birthdays, because you read a book that you thought they might like or you’ve heard about a new support group that’s right up their street (sometimes literally!) goes a long way in making people feel valued and connected to something positive.

Our families are important to us; they are the centre of our world whilst we are with them and we listen

When we are there, in a family home, we are present, with all other distractions of paperwork, meetings, reports etc. put away in a box whilst that family become the centre of our world for the time that we are with them.  They are important, we listen. The simplest of acts, taking someone to their first appointment with a new GP, providing a food parcel or taking them to the park with their children for the first time; this is more than just a job to us and the people that we work with can feel this.

How can you write this down? How can you explain, in the confines of structured reports and complicated funding bid hoops that we jump through, just how valuable these things are and the difference that this makes?  Sometimes the work that we do may not reap rewards until long after a family needs us, we’ve planted the seeds but we’re often not around to see them bloom….that is no good for our monitoring reports that want to see timely and significant change.

Funders reading reports also don’t want to hear that a success for some families is that their situation stayed the same and did not get any worse – and yet, that is as good as things can get for some of the people who need our support.

We have the freedom to think differently, responsively and autonomously…and keep everything going

As a charity we are often viewed as a lesser entity, you know, those wonderful people who mean well but don’t have the professional standing to really make a difference. Having worked in other sectors it is clear to me that those ‘happy clappy’ charity people are the ones keeping everything going, the ones with the freedom to go out on a limb, think differently and work in a truly responsive and autonomous way. Many make a conscious choice, as I did, to use their professional backgrounds, skills and expertise in an environment that welcomes creative thinking and innovation, making a real difference to people’s lives.

We’re often referred to as the ‘third sector’, who ever wants to come third?!  The poor relation, we may be, fashioning something out of nothing becomes an art form here, but it is also the breeding ground for having a go, making it work, looking at things differently and making human connections.

The challenges are huge but the rewards are immeasurable….and this immeasurability becomes our Achilles heel!

For more information on our charity, contact 01253 393748 or email: admin@blackpoolcarers.org

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Click the image below to download your copy.

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If you are a carer and need more information or support, please contact one of our friendly team on 01253 393748.

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BBC Children in Need kindly donate to our Young Carers project to support many Young Carers in Blackpool, just like Tia.

Tia says “If anything was to happen to Toby, I could always rely on the carers’ centre to be able to support me,”.

The post Watch Young Carer, Tia’s story on BBC North West in the run up to BBC Children in Need appeared first on Blackpool Carers.

Please register your interest at fyldecoastops@lscft.nhs.uk

CLICK HERE to download the Information leaflet.

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We just wanted to let you know that we’re here, we’re open and keeping people safe is our priority.

If you need any support with your caring role, please give us a call on 01253 393748 or email: admin@blackpoolcarers.org or come and visit us at Beaverbrooks House.

Keep safe and we look forward to seeing you soon.

CLICK HERE to view our latest Covid-19 Update.

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