Identifying isolated carers: Contacting carers with unmet needs for information and support

Abstract

This report presents the findings of an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded Linkage Project called ' Reaching isolated carers: Contacting carers with unmet needs for information and support'. The Industry Partners on this project were the New South Wales Department for Women, the NSW Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care, the NSW Department of Community Services, NSW Health and Carers NSW. For the purposes of the project, an 'isolated' or 'hidden' carer was defined either as a person who was providing informal (unpaid) care for someone unable to care for themselves but who did not self-identify as a carer, or a person who did identify as a 'carer' but who did not access formal services for assistance despite having high needs. Two methods of identifying 'isolated' carers were deployed, using innovative analyses of two surveys, the 1998 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) 1997 Time Use Survey