VOCAL: Employer support to embed carer-friendly practices

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VOCAL – Voice of Carers Across Lothian – is a charity that supports unpaid carers. We provide training sessions for employers with a presence in Edinburgh and Midlothian. Our goal is to help employers across the public, private and third sector to build confidence in supporting carers in the workplace, and increase awareness in identifying and engaging with carers. Our training sessions aim to give you a strong foundation if you are looking to apply for Carer Scotland’s Carer Positive accreditation.

Caring is often a hidden issue in the workplace, making it difficult to talk about and support. One in five carers give up work because balancing caring and holding down a job becomes too much.

As a leading expert, we collaborate with employers to create carer-friendly workplaces. We can support you in raising awareness, leading team discussions, building carer networks, also reviewing and developing internal policies.

Programme for third sector managers

The programme is aimed at supporting managers in the third sector to increase their awareness of working carers, and how they can best support their employees who are juggling work and care.  We will run an introductory session called Identifying and supporting carers at work, which aims to make carers more visible in the workplace.  During this session, managers will reflect on the hidden impacts of caring and learn how to identify and support unpaid carers within their organisations.

If there is enough interest following the introductory session, we can offer follow-up sessions on:

• Caring conversations
• An introduction to Carer Positive accreditation
• How to develop/improve a carer policy and carer passport
• How to build and establish a successful carer network
• How to engage and communicate to create a caring culture

Registration link: https://forms.office.com/e/RxJJ06b5BZ

For further information on the training and support we can provide, please contact employers@vocal.org.uk.

Check out MVA’s blog for a recap of a Think Carer training session our staff participated in!