Supporting carers from minority communities
Surrey has large minority ethnic communities – 17% of Surrey’s population identify themselves as being from a minority ethnic group. This includes many carers of course, from communities as diverse as Nepalese to Korean, to Polish to Pakistani.
Specific challenges
There can be additional challenges for carers from minority ethnic communities. You might struggle with language barriers, have difficulty in accessing culturally appropriate services and face stereotyping around caring.
Carers may also face pressures to keep caring issues ‘in the family’ and be less likely to self-identify. This can mean increased risk of ill health, loss of work, and social exclusion.
Action for Carers can help. We can:
- Work with you to help with your caring role
- Tell you about culturally appropriate services
- Signpost you to further sources of help and other organisations
- Offer you the opportunity to attend our support groups and events. We have run specialist events for carers from minority ethnic communities.
- We are working to have some of our web pages saved as PDFs, in Polish, Chinese, Urdu, Arabic and Nepalese. (You can also use Google Translate to translate our pages.)
Online chat
Please note Carers UK has a special area in their online forum just for carers from black and minority ethnic communities.
Get in touch
Please get in touch to find out how we can help you. Call us on 0303 040 1234 or email [email protected]. You can also text us (SMS) on 07723 486730.
Surrey Minority Ethnic Forum
Surrey Minority Ethnic Forum, SMEF, is a community organisation with a membership of 40+ grassroots community groups, all working to support Surrey’s minority ethnic communities. Working with the community groups, SMEF holds regular and one off events to support, inform, and hear the voice of Surrey’s different minority ethnic groups and communities. You can call them on 01483 571 781 or email [email protected]