People who look after relatives, friends, neighbours or partners who are sick or disabled often don’t describe themselves as carers, but simply regard caring as part of normal life. This is understandable but it’s important that people who provide this valuable unpaid care are taken into account when Government is planning the support services that they and the person they care for will need.
Question 25 in the Census is a unique opportunity for people of all ages to count their unpaid caring. This applies to everyone who cares whether or not they receive a carer’s benefit. To help you work out your hours of caring, download our helpful online calculator* below.
What does caring involve? Getting someone’s shopping; preparing someone’s meals or helping them to eat; managing their money; helping someone to wash, get dressed, move or get around and; making sure someone is safe at home, are just some examples of caring.
Carers Northern Ireland Director Helen Ferguson explains:
“Many people care for an elderly relative, a sick friend or a disabled family member and it’s important for people to recognise what they do as ‘caring’. Society relies heavily on caring, which saves the taxpayer £3.12 billion per year in Northern Ireland alone. We need an accurate figure for the number of people that provide unpaid care to help us lobby government to plan and budget for carers’ needs.”
*Reproduced with kind permission of Carers Count Campaign 2011, Republic of Ireland
