‘The Care Workers’ Charity: Covid Crisis and Response’

Karolina Gerlich (Executive Director of The Care Workers’ Charity) on the pandemic’s devastating impact on the social care workforce, and how the charity is supporting our social care heroes through the crisis.

Karolina Gerlich (Executive Director of The Care Workers’ Charity) on the pandemic’s devastating impact on the social care workforce, and how the charity is supporting our social care heroes through the crisis.  

The Care Workers’ Charity prevents care workers from falling into financial hardship, by supporting individuals with crisis grants. In providing these grants we know we change lives, providing a safety net for those who have nowhere else to turn.

The onset of Covid-19 necessitated the creation of a new grants stream, as care workers struggled to adapt to the crisis. The Covid-19 Grant Fund was aimed at providing emergency funding;

• to support care workers who had to self-isolate and/or were part of the designated shielding group
• to cover the funeral costs of a care workers’ next of kin or/ the funeral costs of a care worker who has passed away- the expense of which their own next of kin is unable to meet
• to contribute towards the cost of additional childcare incurred as a result of the pandemic

The development of the Fund was not only a targeted response to the impacts of coronavirus on the social care workforce, but also addresses long-standing issues surrounding outside of work caring responsibilities affecting many care workers in the UK.

Our 2019 research paper ‘The Beating Heart of Care’ showed the provision of childcare to be a major concern of care workers, with 76% of parents citing the cost of childcare as their most pressing stressor and 38% of respondents noting that the expense of childcare was their main difficulty. The expense of childcare contributes to the shocking statistic that a working parent is over 1.5 times more likely to be in poverty, than a working non-parent (Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2018). It is no surprise then, that last year almost half of all those who applied for crisis grants were single mothers.

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has heightened the pressures surrounding childcare provision for care workers. Changes to shift patterns, social distancing and school closures have meant that childcare provision has been made far more difficult (IPPR 2020) and care workers on the frontline of the pandemic have been forced to pay for additional childcare that they otherwise would not have had to seek out. This expense has pushed many into financial crisis.

As such, there has never been a greater need for the support offered by The Care Workers’ Charity, and demand for the Covid-19 Emergency Fund (as well as our existing Crisis Grants stream) has increased by 1,000% compared to last year.

The Care Workers’ Charity raised around ¬£2m for our Covid-19 Emergency Fund, the sum total of which has provided vital support to over 2,300 care workers. However, applications show no signs of slowing down, and we need the continued support of leaders and organisations in the social care sector to give care workers the assistance they urgently need, and deserve.