Rethink: carer groups

Vanessa Pinfold: We have about 140 groups across England and it’s quite difficult to characterise them because every single one is an individual entity in its own right and it is run by dedicated volunteers who work with the needs locally in their community and provide support.

The traditional image of one of our carer support groups is where you have people coming along to a monthly meeting, and people talk about some of the challenges that they are having. They might also at some meetings have an invited speaker from the local NHS Trust to shed light on some particular issue – they might even come and consult with the group. 

Outside of that meeting they might do fundraising activities, they might do some campaigning work to try and raise the profile of things happening in their local area – but the primary focus of the groups is about support. 

They have developed, and some of the groups now have carer support workers attached, who are a paid worker, who then have access to provide carers' assessments and facilitate respite breaks for the carers and provide specific one to one counselling services locally.

There is also a training programme run, called Carers Education Training Programme, and it’s a 12-week course where people gain a lot of skills around dealing with what are very difficult issues. Somebody is diagnosed with early onset of psychosis and the family are trying to struggle to understand what’s happening. The CETP (Carers Education Training Programmes) really help the family to understand what exactly is going on and how to help them and develop coping mechanisms around supporting somebody in early stages. Through that, having worked with a group of carers for 12 weeks, often a support group will spin out of it.

On our website we have a list of all our carer groups, so you can put in your postcode and find out the nearest group to you. We also have a National Information line where people can ring and find out where the nearest carer group is, and an email address people can contact. You will be given the name of the group co-ordinator and you will call them up and they will give you a programme of events and welcome you. You don’t have to pay to attend

Rethink operates in England and we have sister charities that we are linked to. In Scotland it’s the National Schizophrenia Fellowship for Scotland, in Wales it’s the HAFAL and in Northern Ireland it’s a recently formed group called the Mindwise (they used to be part of Rethink and they’ve recently launched, post April, as Mindwise). These three organisations alongside Rethink provide carer groups.