
As we start thinking about 2025 and what lies ahead, we would like to tell you about what we have been up to in the last 12 months and about how we have used feedback and suggestions from clients and partners to shape our work.
If you would like to offer us your thoughts, comments or suggestions on anything we do and things we could be doing in the future, please use the Comment box on our website, or our Suggestion box 2025.
Highlights of 2024- programmes we ran
Working with carers
We ran a workshop and 1:1 coaching for Male Carers in Tower Hamlets funded by North East London Health and Care Partnership. The workshop explored how better time management would give them opportunities to focus on the things that are important to them, set boundaries and get other people to help out, and encouraged them to make a plan and commitment to themselves. Participants said they felt better able to manage their time and find time for themselves after the workshop and talked about greater self-awareness, interaction with other participants, thinking about boundaries as being particularly helpful. Given that engaging male carers can be a difficult, we were very pleased with the take-up and hope that this has opened the way for the Carers Centre to set up its first male carers support group.
We started a new project for Young Adult Carers in Bristol funded by the KFC Foundation. This is our first Bristol based project. We know that Young Adult Carers (aged 16-25) don’t identify with services for children or older adults and are busy finding their independence so often miss out on support. Working with SGS College, who had witnessed student carers often struggling to keep up with college work and everything else, we offered a stress management workshop and 1:1 coaching. We have had good engagement with the coaching and are learning about what works best for this age group. One person told us: “I didn’t really know what I was signing up to or what to expect, but I am really pleased I came, as I think this is just what I’ve needed. I would rate it 10 out of 10”.
In September we started work on a programme of coaching workshops and 1:1 coaching for Carers of Barking and Dagenham in East London. Having attended a number of Carers Support Groups and spoken to staff who are supporting carers over the autumn, we are in the process of preparing our workshop programme based on topics identified as important to carers locally, and will be starting 1:1 coaching very soon.
We continue to work with individual carers who are able to self-fund to access one-to-one coaching with one of our coaches. This can be a very flexible way of getting support, perhaps a one- off session or a short or long-term arrangement at the time and frequency that suits carers, and a programme designed specifically for them.
Working with carers support staff
We ran a training programme for carer support staff from Action for Family Carers in Essex on using coaching approaches in their work. We trained 27 staff members who work with both adult and young carers. The feedback was that people feel better equipped to start using coaching approaches in their work, recognising that it may take some time for this new way of working to become properly embedded. Specifically, people talked about feeling more confident, better informed, and appreciating having some structure and new ideas for how to work with clients.
We are supporting Carers Support West Sussex Carer Coaches with training and ongoing supervision. Having been awarded National Lottery funding to develop their own in-house coaching capacity, they are now delivering 1:1 coaching to their service users and making coaching available to more carers in West Sussex. You can see more information about their service here.
How we have developed our organisation
Using the funding from our UnLtd Scale up Award last year, we have been doing a lot of work in the background to try and grow and develop Coaching for Unpaid Carers and raise awareness of our work. For example:
We developed and published our Values to help articulate who we are, how we work and what people can expect when they work with us. We would love to hear your thoughts, comments or feedback about this.
Publicity and Awareness-raising. We have been writing and talking about our work to help raise awareness of the value of coaching for unpaid carers. We ran a workshop at the annual Health and Wellbeing at work Conference at the NEC in Birmingham in March. Our session Supporting Unpaid Carers at Work through Coaching focused on helping delegates to understand more about the impact of working and caring on individuals as well as on businesses and the wider community and shared headlines from our own and external research which demonstrate the positive impact coaching can have on carers, why we think there is a need for coaching for working carers, what kind of coaching seems to work best, and what kind of outcomes organisations can expect.
Research and Evaluation. Working with University College London Community Research
Initiative, our volunteer PhD student researcher, brought together and analysed our 4+ years’ worth of evaluation data to help us demonstrate the impact of our work. Initial headlines show steady improvements in Self-Efficacy, Self-Esteem and Validation for carers who have undertaken a coaching programme and now for the first time.
Coaching for Social Impact Network. As founder members of this network we have contributed to growing and developing the community which aims to bring together anyone involved in coaching people for the social good in a supportive and collaborative network.
How we responded to your comments and feedback
Last year we asked for your thoughts about what you would like to see us doing and also what our priorities should be for 2024/25.
Your Suggestions | Our response |
You told us you would be interested in us developing courses, programmes or resources focusing on: a) Dementia Carers b) Dealing with Bereavement and Loss c) Training qualified coaches to offer Carer Coaching d) Helping people to prepare for coaching e) Developing ideas for self-employment | Our plans for the coming year include
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You suggested the following enhancements:
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You wanted us to make sure we are advertising our services as widely as possible so that more Unpaid Carers can benefit from Coaching. | As mentioned above, we are always on the look out for opportunities to write or speak about or publicise our work. Funding can be an issue in terms of whether people can access our programmes. |
For more information about any of the above, please get in touch, we love to talk about our work and are always happy to share learning. We look forward to working with you again in future and wish you all the best for 2025
Catherine and Katharine
Directors
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