Carers Trust Tyne & Wear

A carer is anyone who cares, unpaid, for a friend or family member who cannot manage without their support due to illness, disability, a mental health problem or an addiction. You will also hear them referred to as ‘caregivers’ or ‘unpaid carers’, which reflects how they give their time and effort without payment. They are different from ‘care workers’, who are paid to provide professional support to someone who is ill or disabled.

Anyone could be a carer – a 15-year-old girl looking after a parent with an alcohol problem, a 40-year-old man caring for his partner who has terminal cancer, or an 80-year-old woman looking after her husband who has Alzheimer's disease. If you look after someone who is ill, frail, disabled, has mental health problems or if they use drugs or alcohol, and they could not manage without your help then you are a carer.

People take on caring responsibilities for different reasons. These can include:

• Chronic illness
• Physical disability
• Frailty
• Neurological conditions
• Mental health problems
• Dementia and other memory-related illnesses
• Addiction
• Learning difficulties
• Autism
• Developmental disabilities in children

Each carer's experience is unique to their own circumstances and can include a variety of tasks, including:

• Practical household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, washing up, ironing, paying bills, financial management and collecting prescriptions.
• Personal care such as bathing, dressing, lifting and administering medication.
• Emotional support such as listening, offering advice and friendship.

There is no minimum time requirement or age restriction that ‘qualifies’ someone as being more or less of a carer. Someone in their seventies who cares 24/7 for their spouse with dementia is a carer. So is a child who gives emotional support to a parent when their mental health requires it. The two situations are very different but both are common examples of the 13.6 million carers in the UK today.

Carers Trust Tyne and Wear is an independent charity supporting carers and their families. Since 1990, we've worked hard to improve support, services and recognition for Gateshead residents living with the challenge of caring, unpaid, for someone who is ill, frail, disabled or has mental health or addiction problems. We're a network partner of the national Carers Trust. Together we're part of the largest independent organisation supporting carers in the UK. We provide services that give people a break from their caring role and help children and young people to overcome the challenges that young carers can face.

Our Services

Our Care Service takes over the caring role for a short while, enabling the carer to have a regular break and connect with friends and family, enjoy a hobby, maintain employment, attend appointments, carry out tasks that might otherwise be impossible, or just simply rest. We understand that a ‘one size fits all’ approach simply doesn’t work. Each carer can require a different type of service, at different times of day or night and each person with care needs requires different support depending on their age, ability and interests. We work with the carer and, as far as possible, the person with care needs, to devise a suitable care plan that is reviewed at each visit. We're not restricted by age, health condition or personal circumstances. The families that we support all have very different requirements related to their health or ability.

Click here to find out more about our Care Service. 

Our Young Carer Service provides specialist support to children and young people age 5-17 with a caring responsibility for someone that they live with. We carry out Young Carer Needs Assessments on behalf of Gateshead Council and use this to devise a service that can include social opportunities, skills, personal development and wellbeing programmes, emotional support, school drop-ins, advocacy and individual grants. Before a young carer turns 18, we offer a Transition Assessment to help identify the support that they will need as they become and adult carer.

Click here to find out more about our Young Carer Service.