Carers Week is an annual campaign raising awareness of caring, highlighting the challenges unpaid family carers face and recognising the contribution they make to families and communities. Carers Week also helps people who don’t think of themselves as having caring responsibilities to identify as carers and access much-needed support.

At Merton Mencap, we’re marking Carers Week 2023 in these ways:

Carers lunch – Monday 5 June

Carers of adults with learning disabilities and/or autism can enjoy lunch for free at our Community Café on Monday 5 June.  To book your place, contact Niki Lowe:

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020 3963 0599

Support for local businesses

Are you a local employer? We are using Carers Week 2023 to highlight to local businesses what they may wish to do to support family carers in the workplace.

Family carers have made great changes to their lives, including to their careers, but many carers would like to return to work if only businesses can support them to do so.

So if you are a local business, please think about how you can be more inclusive to local people who have family caring responsibilities.   

• You may wish to update your recruitment comms to say your business welcomes applications from family carers. This can be a powerful message right from the beginning which reassures people with caring responsibilities that you support their application
• When shortlisting, see beyond the person’s CV. A carer may be returning to work after a lengthy absence so consider what you can do to support them and be flexible about the shortlisting criteria. You may choose to shortlist for interview family carers who meet your minimum criteria
• At interview, make clear that you are supportive and understanding of family carers and, if the person is successful, you would be willing to look at making adjustments to help them
• When you’ve made your recruitment decision to appoint a family carer, speak to them about the support they may need. Remember, every carer is an individual and their circumstances are different – for example, there may be regular appointments a carer needs to attend or they may need a later start time due to busy mornings supporting a family member to get ready for the day. It’s often a good idea to talk through contingency planning so you both know what to do if the person needs to manage an emergency in their family
• Keep in regular contact with the person to check how things are going for them at work and see whether there is anything else you can do to support them in their role.

We recommend employers seek the advice of an appropriate HR service who can advise on the support which can be provided to people with family caring responsibilities in the workplace.

Local events

There is a lot happening in Merton to celebrate Carers Week 2023! Download the schedule of events here: