The Centre started to provide work placements for students, one of whom prepared a paper on Young Adult Carers following her interest in this area of work.
This piece of research formed the basis of a bid to the Health Lottery in 2012 and the 16-25 Young Adult Carers’ (YAC) project was launched.
With a Santander Award (Social Enterprise Development Award), the Centre opened its first shop in Blackpool followed by a second shop in Cleveleys in 2012.
The Eric Wright Charitable Trust provided funding for a Business Development Officer to drive forward the development of chargeable services. Following this a decision was made to appoint a Retail Manager.
The tiered service was introduced across the adult provision to ensure resources were focused on those carers most in need. A new assessment tool was implemented to measure impact of interventions.
A programme of out of hours support for young people living with parental substance misuse was introduced.
We organised a young carers’ conference headlined by Professor Saul Becker and welcomed 100 delegates from across the region.
NHS Blackpool provided funding to support the core function. A Resources Manager and a Quality and monitoring Officer were appointed. The Centre featured on ITVs Daybreak Programme in December.
