Carers Week, held from 10-16 June, was another jam-packed week celebrating and creating awareness around carers and caring, aiming to put carers on the map.

Carers UK released their ‘No choice but to care’ research report where YouGov polling of nearly 6,500 people found that 62% of current and former unpaid carers said they had no choice about taking on an unpaid caring role - the equivalent to 10 million adult unpaid carers.

Almost 2,000 people added their voice to the Carers Week website wall and every day a different carer's story was featured on the Carers’ Stories webpage on the Carers Week website.

A new resource, AccessAva was launched which is an online tool that helps you understand the law on social care in England. The tool can help you find out about the rights you have and the rights of anyone you're caring for. 

Carers UK's Patrons Johnnie and Tiggy Walker were interviewed on the Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio 2 where they announced to the public for the first time that Johnnie has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. We are incredibly grateful to them for this selfless decision to go public during Carers Week in order to raise awareness of caring. You can listen to the episode here.

A few highlights from the Employers for Carers team included starting the week with Lincolnshire County Council and having a meaningful chat with managers about how to help carers practically on a day-to-day basis. 

A panel event was held at Sky where employees and celebrity guests talked about their caring responsibilities and the impact that this has had. Sky were also presented with their certificate for their Carer Confident Active accreditation.

During the week there was a live interview session with Financial Ombudsman Service featuring Abby Thomas, CEO and Employers for Carers' Juliet Andrew-Orji. Abby shared her personal experiences as a carer for her daughter and encouraged others to speak to their managers about their own caring duties at work.

Finally, Thales UK's Let's Learn Session saw over 150 staff come together to learn about their membership with Employers for Carers and newly launched Carers Passport and Policy. It was an informative session with great discussion around how Thales is responding to the needs of colleagues with caring responsibilities in the workplace. It also featured remarks from Carers' Policy Sponsor Daz Rawlins on his own experience with juggling work with care and the importance of flexibility and understanding from employees and managers alike.

It was a wonderful week and thank you to every organisation who shared the campaign and celebrated Carers Week, we look forward to working with you next year!