LACE Partners: Turning conversations about caring into action
As one of LACE Partners' chosen charities of the year, TIDE recently had the opportunity to meet with members of the LACE team to talk about caring, dementia and the experiences of people who combine work with caring responsibilities.
What began as an opportunity to learn more quickly became a much wider conversation. For some of those taking part, it was surprising to discover just how many colleagues across the organisation had personal experience of dementia or caring.
The discussion highlighted something that can easily remain hidden in workplaces: many employees are balancing their working lives with caring responsibilities, often without colleagues being aware of the additional pressures they may be managing.
One of the most positive outcomes from the session was strong interest in establishing an internal staff carer forum within LACE.
The forum could provide a space for colleagues with caring responsibilities to connect with one another, share experiences and information and offer peer support. But it could also have a wider role, giving carers within the organisation a collective voice and creating a way for them to feed back on how LACE's employment policies and working practices operate for employees who are carers.
TIDE has offered to support LACE in developing the forum, drawing on our experience of bringing carers together and ensuring that lived experience helps to shape organisational practice.
For us, this is also a great example of what can grow from a charity partnership. Raising awareness of dementia and caring is important, but even better is when those conversations lead to practical changes that can make a difference to people's everyday working lives.
We look forward to continuing to work with LACE and seeing where their new carers' network takes them.
