Commissioning Carers in Partnership

     Carers in Partnership (CiP) seeks to gain recognition from providers and commissioners that informal/family carers provide a parallel mental health service funded out of love and duty alone, that carers deserve the equality of trust and respect that should accord with that status, and that they should be involved as fully as possible in the development, evaluation and improvement of mental health & care services for service users and carers.

    Providing support for those with a mental condition is uniquely different from caring for those with a physical disability because of the fluctuating and often unpredictable state of the person’s mind.  Many mental health carers need significant support at certain times.  That is the role of those authorities which have a statutory duty of care for carers.  Several employ specialist carer workers for this purpose.  Although important, support is not CiP’s prime aim.  CiP’s work is targeted towards service improvement.  Services which could be commissioned include:

• Facilitating development of active carer/stake-holder groups in ‘localities’ of the region
• Guidance to service providers about engaging carers effectively
• Developing involvement to include BME groups and embrace socio-economic diversity
• Providing best-practice workshops for carer workers regionally
• Dissemination across the region of good practice in carer/stake-holder engagement
• Providing/ publishing guidelines for carers and others on MH issues
• Facilitation of carer input to locality-based commissioning strategy and related process
• Assisting universities in the delivery of MH-related under- and post-graduate courses
• Contributing to the CPD of managers and professionals working within the service
• Working alongside service staff in the delivery of carer training and family work
• Contributing a consensus view of carers to national surveys and research work
• Providing informed feedback to NIMHE and others concerning national reviews
• Providing trained carers to facilitate service improvement and new ways of working
• Advising on and running programmes for carer involvement in specialist MH  services
• Contributing expertise to those hosting the emerging LINks  for public engagement

To discuss with us ways in which we might work together, contact us