North Lanarkshire Carers Together

Basic Information

Contracted by University Health and Social Care North Lanarkshire (UHSC NL) and North Lanarkshire Council (NLC), North Lanarkshire Carers Together (NLCT) are the Information and Advice Service for Carers and professionals and are also Carer Support Network Leads.

NLCT offer a range of services ensuring Carers rights and needs are known, upheld, and considered as part of local and national policy and guidance development.

Services Offered

Carers
Young Carers

Initial Contact Support

The staff team will usually be the first people you speak to when contacting NLCT. We will provide a listening ear, understand the type of information, advice or service(s) you are looking for, and aim to provide this in a way that you can understand and ensure it is of value to your needs. Our dedicated Information & Engagement Team will look after you at a time which Carers often describe as difficult when reaching out for support.

Carer Support Network

NLCT facilitate and coordinate this programme of work. Since the end of 2021 Carers have been able to access new services across North Lanarkshire that provide short breaks from their caring roles and allow them to take some quality time out from the routine. In partnership with UHSC NL, NLCT supported the consultation of Carers on the design of these new services. Carers told us that service providers needed to think outside the box and address the need for time out that didn’t only take the form of an annual short break grant, or holiday, and a break that was easily accessible and regular in the community. A range of Carer Breather funded projects across North Lanarkshire are now offering activities Carers said they wanted. These include art therapy, health and wellness activities, holistic support, and groups supporting people caring for loved ones with learning disabilities or living with long term conditions.

Carer Aware

NLCT have designed and deliver Carer Aware Workshops for our partners and carer groups across North Lanarkshire to ensure Carers and services are informed on the rights carers have. These sessions empower Carers to access support and services and supports our partners to best provide support and services to the Carers they come into contact with. The course is interactive with attendees encouraged to participate in discussions to facilitate and support peer learning.

Carer Forum

NLCT’s Carer Forum is a group of Carers who meet in person or digitally 4 times a year, and online via a closed social media platform to help shape local and national policy that affects Carers and the people they care for. It is an important role and ensures Carers’ collective voices are heard by policy makers. The Carer Forum has formed collective responses to the Scottish Government, UHSC NL and NLC to help shape the design and redesign services and policy affecting Carers. The Forum ensures Carers are at the heart of new services in North Lanarkshire and NLCT’s guiding principle is ‘We Asked, You Said, We Did’ promising to continually update carers on how their feedback has influenced actions, decisions, and improvements.

Carer Podcast

NLCT were delighted to launch our new podcast, Carers Together early in 2022. A podcast is an audio programme, a little like a talk radio programme, but you subscribe to it on your smartphone, tablet or laptop and listen to it at any time which suits you. A great way to spend a spare half hour for some you time! You can find NLCT Carers Together podcast on all the usual Android, Apple and Spotify platforms.

Family Support Service

North Lanarkshire Council: Education & Families have commissioned North Lanarkshire Carers Together to deliver a Whole Family Support Service to support parent carers and their child or young person living at home who has a need for additional support. Whole family support is tailored to meet the needs of each individual family, and this is aligned with the Ten Principles of Intensive Family Support within The Promise as well as the child/young person’s Wellbeing Plan and underpinned by Children’s Rights. Families can access the service via a referral from the child/young person’s school following the child’s wellbeing meeting, or a referral from the Neurodevelopmental Service. The family will then be contacted by one of our Family Support Workers.