Building Carer
Friendly Communities
For Carers Week 2026, we’re highlighting the power of building carer friendly communities – and the difference they can make to carers’ lives.
What makes a community carer friendly?
Carer friendly communities are places, spaces, services and community groups where unpaid carers are recognised, understood, and valued. They make support part of everyday life ensuring carers get the opportunities and help they need. They are made up of people who:
- recognise unpaid carers and the vital role they play
- understand the realities and impact of caring
- take action to identify and support carers in practical ways
- empower carers to live fulfilling lives
When communities work together in this way, carers have fairer opportunities and can lead better lives.
Why we need carer friendly communities
The UK’s 5.8 million unpaid carers are the backbone of our communities. Every day, they provide support to friends, family members, and loved ones. But are often overlooked, undervalued, and unsupported. They can face challenges in every part of their lives – affecting their health and wellbeing, education, careers and livelihoods, relationships, daily life, hopes and aspirations.
Carer friendly communities can help to change this. They turn understanding into action and make support part of everyday life.
Making a difference to carers
Carer friendly communities can exist anywhere carers live, work, study, or spend time. Even small changes in these places can, and do, make a big difference to carers’ daily lives. There’s lots of different ways carer friendly communities can help, for instance:
- Business and services – making everyday tasks easier for carers by offering flexible or priority access
- Community – sports clubs, faith groups, or community organisations creating opportunities for carers to feel connected
- Education – schools, colleges, or universities identifying young and young adult carers and putting support in place to help them reach their potential
- Health – GP practices, pharmacies or health services raising awareness amongst their staff to help identify and connect carers to support
- Social care – taking a whole-family approach to ensure everyone gets the help they need
- Work – offering flexible working to support employees to juggle paid work and caring
Carers Week first highlighted carer friendly communities in 2015–16, and we’re excited to build on this legacy by sharing ideas, tips and real examples from communities that have created positive change.
No matter the size of your community or how you connect, there are practical and meaningful steps you can take to make your community more carer friendly.
Together, let’s build carer friendly communities – and make a real and lasting difference to the lives of carers everywhere.
Find out how you can help build carer friendly communities in the following areas:
I think a carer friendly community is one where people go the extra mile and meaningfully ask how I'm doing and genuinely listen to my answer.”