Helping encourage carers to achieve their goals outside of their caring roles

Monday 14th May 2012 in

News By Tanya O’Rourke

A project to help carers access learning, training and employment is set to benefit from a slice of more than £3.7 million lottery cash.

The Carers’ Resource in Bradford has received a boost of £295,122 which will go towards helping encourage carers to achieve their goals outside of their caring roles.

It will provide courses, work experience, employment opportunities and help with interview preparation for people who care for others to get ahead in their own careers.

Anna Jackson, head of development at the charity, said the money would go towards improving carers’ access to opportunities and working with employers to make the workplace better for carers.

She said: “Work is a really important thing for a carer, to give them a sense of independence and normality.

“We’ll be delivering a lot of workshops and sessions for carers, for confidence building and CV writing, and with employers we’ll be running seminars around how they can improve what they do with carers.”

The organisation will be taking on two personal development advisors to run one to one sessions with carers, catering the help they can offer to the person’s individual needs.

Mrs Jackson said the money would help run the project for the next three years. She said: “We’re absolutely delighted – to know we can really reach out over three years and work with a lot of carers is fantastic.”

The charity is running one of 15 projects in the region sharing the money from the Big Lottery Fund’s Reaching Communities programme.

Vanessa White, Big Lottery Fund’s head of the Yorkshire and Humber region, said: “The purpose of the Reaching Communities programme is to help build strong communities, with people working together to tackle their problems. These projects are all excellent examples of this and I am delighted they are receiving funding this month.”

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