Quarriers Carer Support Service: Aberdeen City Carers: Capacity Building Project (360G-SCVO-a133z00000KmCvZAAV)

We seek your generous support to enable us to enhance our newly established ‘Respitality Bureau’ at our Carer Support Service in Aberdeen. Respitality is a concept which creates opportunities for unpaid carers to have meaningful breaks from caring without financial constraints or the stress of planning a break. Local carer organisations in partnership with donors from the hospitality, tourism and leisure sector, co-ordinate and plan all aspects of the break so that carers can relax, enjoy time for themselves. This project will offer transformational benefits to carers who will be able to come in or phone in and be supported through a discussion on taking a break from caring. This break may come either through a holiday or through the purchase of equipment such as hobby materials, exercise equipment or gardening equipment. It is designed to be as flexible to the carer’s needs as possible. Previously the Service has offered this funding through an application process, however, we learned from this experience through feedback from carers, that the application process is a significant barrier for carers and their ability to access a break. This is due to the administration and coordination involved with trying to organise a break with local providers. In addition to this obstacle, the Service also suffered from a lack of capacity to deliver the additional amounts of funding that came to Carers Centre during the pandemic. This meant we were required to seek support from agency staff to help deliver it to ensure carers did not miss out. In reflecting upon what worked well and what didn’t; the Service decided that in order to improve the process for carers and better facilitate access, it needed to expand beyond application forms. Our new feedback-led approach will mean that the administrative side of Respitality will be organised by two dedicated members of staff who will have key expertise in working with Respitality and Time to Live funding. They will then guide the carer through a set of user-friendly questions to find out what type of break would best suit them and help them arrange this. This makes a significant contribution in reducing the burden upon the time and capacity of carers, in addition to the wider Service who can then completely focus on the direct delivery of support. For the service to evolve to this way of providing support, there are office adaptions required to be made to a current meeting room to turn it into the Respitality Bureau office and create a dedicated functional space for the project. These changes include; the purchase of desks, chairs, a filing cabinet, laptops and docking stations, as well as a phone specifically for the bureau. In addition to these changes, we are also applying for funding for a franking machine to increase our capacity in managing our significant posting requirements associated with our very popular newsletter. Our application further includes bespoke training in Charitylog to make the best use of its database functions for our service.