Weekly Update: First Award of the Year

Jan 15, 2021

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It’s just our second week back at work and we have already have a new Carer Positive Employer! We met with with Midlothian Council on Tuesday to present their Engaged level award and have a chat about their work to support carers in their workforce.

Midlothian Council have developed a really great foundation of support for their working carers, which has included a lot of awareness raising to help and encourage members of staff with caring responsibilities to identify themselves. They have a Carers Policy and Carers Passport which are clearly laid out and have also developed relationships with local carer services, which are able to offer practical support.

Well done to everyone at Midlothian Council on your award. We are happy to say that the application we received from them was very strong and we hope that they will go on to achieve the Established level in the near future.

Despite the doom and gloom of ongoing lockdown this week, it has been heartening to see vaccines being rolled out across the country. In Scotland, unpaid carers are on the priority list for receiving the Covid-19 vaccine, however, as there is no national register of all carers in Scotland, it may be necessary for people with caring responsibilities to make themselves known in order to receive a priority vaccine.

Currently the Scottish Government are advising that they will be working with carers centres, amongst other routes, to get information on eligible unpaid carers. Unpaid carers can find their local Carers Centre at this link, these carers services will them be able to get in touch when more information on how to receive the vaccine becomes available.