As we come to the end of another year and celebrate CarerHelp’s 3rd birthday, the CarerHelp team, based at the Centre for Palliative Care (St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne) and Flinders University, wanted to reflect on the achievements across the year. 

CarerHelp is an online resource that provides information and resources to support Australians who are caring for a partner, relative or friend as they near the end of life.
This year, CarerHelp achieved a significant milestone having reached 40,000 Australians since launching in October 2019, with 12,000 new users this year alone. Referral from our supporter organisations is the biggest source of traffic to our website and therefore we’d specifically like to thank Health Direct, Cancer Australia, CareSearch, Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement, and My Aged Care.

Diverse Communities

Another major achievement this year was the release of tailored resources for Australia’s diverse communities of carers. This includes resources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, LGBTIQ+ families, and families who speak other languages. In addition to factsheets, we also have new videos for our new community pages. We encourage you to have a look.
To accompany these new resources, we have focused on promoting these resources widely by encouraging services to incorporate these resources into their routine care. In case you missed it, CarerHelp organised a webinar for National Carers Week on the topic of supporting culturally diverse families at the end of life, which you can still watch here. 

Support Workers

CarerHelp has also highlighted and recognised the importance of support workers and the role they play in supporting people at the end of life and their families. We know that support workers can be vital in the care of people living with disabilities, or people from vulnerable populations, and require information to provide end of life care for their clients. CarerHelp’s newly released resources for support workers provide guidance on supporting people who are at the end of life and support on working with specific communities around end of life.
We have continued to promote CarerHelp via social media, with campaigns over the year focusing on diversity and end of life care. The CarerHelp team also attended several conferences this year including the PCNA, CNSA and COSA conferences. While not our main focus, we also contributed to the palliative care evidence base by having two journal articles published (related to the project) and two conference presentations (and a poster) this year.

Information Packs

Our CarerHelp Information Packs continue to be very popular and are now available online to download. These packs provide a bundle of resources which can easily be printed off and given to families as needed. We look forward to developing similar kits for some of our communities in the coming year.
The CarerHelp team are always interested in hearing your feedback about how you have used our resources, or your suggestions for new resources. Please email us at carerhelp@flinders.edu.au. We’d also like to thank all our partners and National Reference Group members who have supported the project.
Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday period.

The CarerHelp team. 

Author: Dr, Kristina Thomas, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Palliative Care