South Tees Carers Forum

The purpose of the South Tees Carers’ Forum is:

  • To help develop a shared vision and promote robust coordinated services to support both adult and young Carers across South Tees
  • To facilitate and enable the voice of unpaid Carers to feed into the work of the Forum and reflect their views and needs based on co-production principles developed by the forum
  • To be a conduit for influencing the development of unpaid Carers’ services across all statutory agencies and in partnership with the voluntary and community sector.

Who are unpaid Carers?

  • A Carer is anyone, including children and adults, who looks after a family member, partner or friend who needs help because of their illness, frailty, disability, a mental health problem or an addiction and cannot cope without their support. The care they give is unpaid.
  • A Carer is anyone who provides unpaid care or support for another person 
  • A Carer is someone who would answer 'Yes' to the question, "Does someone rely on you for care and support?"

To help understand, recognise and identify Carers, the Forum has prepared a briefing note that anyone can use and share. The Forum hopes to raise awareness of unpaid carers whatever their age or background and to enable them to access services, be recognised for their valuable contribution and to be supported in ways appropriate to their needs.

About South Tees Carers Forum

The South Tees Carers' Forum acts as an advisory body. Our vision is to improve services, support, recognition and outcomes for unpaid Carers of all ages and backgrounds in South Tees by working collaboratively and sharing expertise, learning and resources.

Members of the Forum include representatives from organisations across the South Tees, including Middlesbrough Council, Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council and Integrated Care Board (who together form the South Tees Joint Commissioning Group for Carers Services in South Tees); Carers and those representing Carers; voluntary and community sector organisations and infrastructure organisations (MVDA and RCVDA); public health; primary and acute care; education; business; and housing.  Membership of the Forum is flexible, a range of task and finish groups will draw on additional expertise from other organisations on particular strategy themes, as well as on the lived experience of Carers.

South Tees Carers Strategy and Action Plan

Discussions and recommendations from the full Forum and a series of five task groups helped develop and inform the South Tees Carers Strategy 2021-26 and Action Plan 2021-22. These were agreed upon by the Forum in March 2021 and can be downloaded or viewed at the links below.

The Strategy sets out the priorities across the South Tees region for the identification, recognition and support of unpaid carers of all ages and together with the action plan, informs the commissioning of services by the South Tees Joint Commissioning Group and seeks to align wider partnership resources and expertise to meet the needs of Carers. Both the Strategy and Action Plan reflect five themes, which follow the National Action Plan for Carers and take account of national policy and activity, but address the situation and needs in South Tees:

  • Services and systems that work for Carers
  • Employment and financial well being
  • Supporting Young Carers
  • Recognising and supporting carers in the wider community and society
  • Building research and evidence to improve outcomes for Carer.

MEETINGS 

Task Groups:  The task groups associated with the Carers Strategy themes are progressing work on the action plan.  Click here to find out more about each group, their work and future meetings.

Minutes and reports from previous Forum meetings are provided at the bottom of this page.

USEFUL DOCUMENTS AND LINKS

South Tees Carers Strategy and Action Plan

South Tees Carers Forum Terms of Reference

Forum Reports and Minutes

Forum Chair

Mark Davis (MVDA CEO) mark.davis@mvdauk.org.uk 

This project is hosted by MVDA on behalf of the South Tees Carers Forum