The Carers' Information Service
About Us
The Whitgift Foundation, a charity founded in 1596 to provide education for the young and care for the elderly, set up the Carers' Information Service in 1997.
There are four members of staff and a team of 15 volunteers. We provide the following free services.
Enquiry Service
Carers can contact us by phone, email and in person by appointment. We do not offer a home visiting service but are always happy to see people at our office. We have a team of advisors who can answer questions you may have about caring such as whether there are any benefits you may be entitled to and what local services and groups there are. We can also liaise with other professionals on your behalf and signpost you to any organisations that can help with your particular situation
Liaison with Professionals
We work closely with the professionals who work alongside carers in order to support the carers we work with, to help develop new services and work on joint initiatives. We also give presentations about our work and deliver carer awareness training.
Training
With funding from Croydon Council we are able to run free monthly training sessions for carers. These usually run on a Tuesday from 9.30 am to 3 pm and are held at a central Croydon venue. We are able to offer reimbursement for the costs of alternative care, childcare and transport to ensure that any carer who wants to come is able to. We also provide refreshments and lunch. Training sessions have covered practical skills such as first aid, moving and handling people and nutrition awareness as well as interpersonal skills like behaving more assertively.
If you would like to find out more about our training sessions, please contact Ruth Laws on 020 8649 9339 ext.221 or email ruthlaws@carerscontactline.co.uk.
We produce a range of free publications, available in paper or electronic format.
How To...A Guide for Carers in Croydon
Our flagship publication is the How To...A Guide for Carers in Croydon. This guide condenses the most relevant local and national services for people with disabilities and their carers into one volume, so that carers have access to a single, reliable source of information, help and advice.
How To...A Guide for Carers in Croydon can also be viewed online.
Factsheets
We also produce a series of factsheets that look at some of the key topics in the How To Guide in more depth.
All our factsheets are available to download.
Newsletter
Every other month we publish our newsletter, Carers News, which is full of information we think carers need to know; whether it's a new carers' support service in Croydon, or a change to the law which affects carers all over the country.
To join our mailing list and receive Carers News by post or email , please email jenny_jones@carerscontactline.co.uk.
You can also read and download Carers News online, as well as access past editions.
E-Bulletin
Once a month we produce an e-bulletin, What's New for Carers?, that advertises various activities, events and services for carers in Croydon, as well as relevant information from all over the country.
If you would like to receive What's New for Carers? please email jenny_jones@carerscontactline.co.uk, telling us if you are a carer and if so who you care for.
Alternatively you can read What's New for Carers? online.
Special Events
We work alongside other local organisations to run events that celebrate Carers Week in June and Carers Rights Day in December.
On a monthly basis, usually on a Wednesday from 11 am to 2 pm, we hold an information outreach session at Mayday Hospital in the main reception area, where we offer any passing carers or professionals the chance to talk to us to find out more about the Carers' Information Service and how we might be able to help them.
Volunteering
We offer a wide variety of volunteering opportunities. So whether you want to come and help us in the office, get some fresh air whilst delivering our newsletters, come up with wonderful ideas for improving our publicity, or anything else you think you have to offer us, please email helenthompson@carerscontactline.co.uk and we will send you our Volunteer Information Pack.
Page last updated: 15/01/2010
This Web Site © Copyright, Carers' Information Service 2006.
Although great care has been taken in the compilation and preparation of this work to ensure accuracy, the Carers' Information Service cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. Any links to external websites have been carefully selected but are provided without any endorsement of the content of those sites.
Website designed by Niall Johnson and the Carers' Information Service
