Spotlight on Cares Sandwell

Tell us what you do
CARES offers information, advice, help and support to unpaid family carers and the people they look after within the borough of Sandwell. We strive to improve the quality of life of the carers with whom we work and seek to enable carers to continue to care.

The Charity provides the following services for carers – an Advice, Information and Outreach Service, a Home Visiting Service, Carer Support Drop in Sessions, Carer Cafes & Outings, an Adult Guidance & Lifelong Learning Service and a Carer Consultation Network.

What is your proudest achievement?
Our proudest achievement is the significant impact we have made to the lives of unpaid family carers and the people they care for, for the past 30 years and of our reputation both locally and nationally as an organisation which delivers high quality services for local carers.

What is your experience of support received from SCVO (if relevant)
We have received a range of support services from SCVO since its inception. They have provided infrastructure support, information about local and national initiatives, fundraising support and access to organisations and individuals that CARES, on its own, would not have been able to achieve.

What is the most valuable lesson you have learnt about working with people in Sandwell?
The most valuable lesson we have learnt from working with local carers is they are willing to go above and beyond for the people they care for; to ensure they have a good quality of life and they receive good quality services.

What are your plans for the future and some of the challenges you face?
CARES plans for the future are to continue to operate as the main ‘Carers Hub’ in Sandwell and continue to be a sustainable organisation delivering high quality services for local carers and the people they support. The challenges we face are balancing the ever decreasing funding with potentially higher targets, dealing with potential loss of staff – meaning we will have to reduce the level of service but still manage the quality we deliver.

Also, because of our status as a user led organisation, we have identified the charity has too much reliance on specific individuals and funding sources and we need to expand on both. We also need to possibly re-shape and re-badge what we offer to ensure funders want to procure our services.

How can SCVO help to support your organisation in the future?
We don’t require SCVO to do anything different from their current activities. Continued information and support will be beneficial to CARES – should SCVO be able to obtain additional resource then fundraising help and governance support would be our priorities in the future.

For further information, please contact – 0121 558 7003 http://cares-sandwell.org.uk/