North Tyneside Carers' Centre works to the motto "If someone depends on you, you can depend on us". They estimate that there 22,000 people in their borough providing unpaid support for a family member, friend, partner or neighbour - people who simply could not manage without that support due to the effects of their illness, disability, substance misuse or mental health.
Goodlabs were asked to undertake a strategic review of the social impact of the charity, as a foundational building block in the process of producing of a new five-year strategic plan 2018-2023. In the five years since the publication of their 2012-2017 strategic plan the funding landscape has changed dramatically. Social care funding within the local authority has been subject to major cuts due to the climate of Austerity. In this context organisations like NTCC that provide commissioned services are being required to demonstrate the outcomes of their work more precisely than ever before.
We commended the charity for the quality of its leadership and senior management, for being a well-connected organisation (in terms of having good relationships in place with key funders and commissioners), and for its sophisticated services and processes that have been intelligently thought through with good levels of adoption and compliance.
Amongst our strategic recommendations we discussed ways to make improvements to the Theory of Change running through the various services; new methods for quantifying demand reduction on publicly funded services in health and social care; and new partnership possibilities within the Young Carers services - with a special focus on improving school attendance and educational outcomes for young people with caring responsibilities at home.