A Check In for Carers: A Practical Way to Support Carers

Carers play a crucial role in our society, but it’s no easy task to be a carer. Carer’s are often isolated and in need of support.

This article looks at a quick way to check in on carers.

How to Check In With A Carer

Checking in is a powerful life skill for connecting and building strong relationships. Check ins can be done in many ways, from a short text to a conversation over dinner.

Of course, carers face some unique challenges. A check in with a carer might cover topics like:

• How They Feel: how does the carer feel, day to day? Are they going ok?
• The Caring Role: how does a carer feel that they understand the role, have the necessary skills, have the ability to plan ahead and feel able to communicate with other care professionals?
• Managing at Home: how does a carer feel that they are managing their day-to-day care tasks? How suitable is the home for the person that is receiving care?
• Health: how well is the care managing their physical and mental health, and their overall lifestyle? Do they have sufficient access to doctors and other health services?
• Time for Themselves: Does the carer have adequate time for themselves? What about their social, and breaks from hands on caring?
• Finances: how is the carer coping financially, including day-to-day finances (such as paying bills or cashing pensions) and longer term management of debt, savings and investments?
• Work: how well is the carer balancing their responsibilities to provide care with other work responsibilities?

Spark Conversation with a Carer with iyarn

We’ve built iyarn to help people check in, no matter what their specific circumstances.

Simply define what matters to you or your contacts, and check in on those topics! Its easy to get started.

Take the Carer Check In

We’ve set up a quick, easy check in for carers using iyarn.

This particular check in does not require a login or signup. All data is stored anonymously.

This is a quick example of a check in. Additional features are available on iyarn once you’ve set up an account, including saving your data and setting up your own check ins.

Get Talking

iyarn is all about unlocking good, honest conversation between people.

In general, the tips for using iyarn as a spark for conversation in clubs are:

1. Talk about the positives.
2. If people are comfortable, talk about the negatives. Note this may take some time.
3. Talk about progress over time.
4. Talk about actionable next steps that’ll help to improve ratings.

Get Started

Use iyarn’s web app if you’re on a desktop or download the app from App Store (for iPhone) and Google Play (for Android).

Set up a wheel in a few clicks and then share it to the people you need to check in with. We’ve just added a great share results feature!

iyarn is great as it can form a habit for checking in!