“It’s all signposting, form-filling, and nothing tangible”: what Worcestershire’s parent carers told Worcestershire County Council
This week Worcestershire Parent Carer Forum (WPCF) hosted an online engagement event on behalf of Worcestershire County Council, as part of their refresh of the county’s Carers’ Strategy. Steven Medley, the council’s lead commissioner for the refresh, and colleagues Emma Allen and Jill Hughes joined a group of parent carers to hear, in their own words, “what has changed and what hasn’t.”
It was a small group but what came out of the 90 minutes was anything but small. Over and over, one message cut through: recognition without action is worthless. As one parent carer put it when asked what frustrates parent carers most:
“It’s the people that are meant to help us, not helping us. So, thinking you’re going to ring Early Help to get some actual help, only to be told you can’t have any help; ringing to get a Parent Carer’s assessment, to be told you can’t have one … So few people actually deliver anything meaningful. It’s all signposting, form-filling, and nothing tangible.”
Recognition that doesn’t translate into support
The evening opened on the theme of feeling “recognised and valued”- and parent carers were clear that recognition, on its own, changes nothing. Parent carers described the impossibility of attending GP appointments dictated with no flexibility for someone juggling multiple caring roles. Our parent carers even proposed some solutions – a Worcestershire-wide carers’ recognition scheme, modelled on how the veterans’ movement has shifted public and professional attitudes. But that same parent also clarified, “A badge is no use as an ornament. I’d like a badge that gets me something that makes my life easier.”
A parent carer of two children with additional needs, who also supports her own parents, made a related but distinct point: parent carers are often the least recognised carers of all, precisely because caring for your own child is assumed to be “just what parents do.”
“My dad is more recognised as a carer for his wife than I am recognised as a carer for my children, because I’ve got that parent label.”
“A life of your own just doesn’t exist”
Respite and short breaks produced some of the sharpest testimony of the night. Several parent carers described losing their jobs simply because there is no childcare or holiday provision that can meet their children’s needs, even part-time:
“I’ve spent over a thousand pounds a month in the last month buying support worker time for my son, who’s 12, because there are no clubs for him to go to… I’m in the fortunate position to be able to do that, but most people aren’t.”
She argued that a genuine short-breaks offer isn’t a nice-to-have but the foundation the whole strategy stands or falls on: “We can’t have a Carers Strategy without a short breaks offer… it isn’t fit for purpose.” Waiting lists for specialist holiday provision, such as Malvern Special Families, run to two years.
The parent carer of two children with additional needs described the practical impossibility of Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) provision when her two children, six years apart in age, need different things – across an entire summer, she found only one session both could attend.
“A life of your own just doesn’t exist.”
Two parent carers of a ten-year-old with autism and ADHD, both of whom had to give up work, put it starkly:
“We both had to give up work because there was no other option. We’ve used HAF once recently and our child had to be picked up early because she was in crisis. There are very very few that can meet the care needs of our youngest so we have no respite at all.”
The parent carer of two children with additional needs also described being flagged by every professional she saw as being at risk herself, yet receiving no carer’s assessment and no offer of respite off the back of it – leaving her feeling that concern for her wellbeing was only ever words:
“It kind of made it feel like… not only pointless, but empty. Empty promises of, you know, well, we care about you, but we don’t really care about you that much, because we’re not actually going to offer you anything.”
Carer’s assessments: hard to find, and not worth much once you do
Several parents said plainly that they had never heard of a carer’s assessment.
“I’ve never heard of a carer’s assessment.”
“I’ve heard of them through the WPCF but how do you even get one? It highlights the lack of awareness and their accessibility if nobody knows about them.”
One parent carer to a young adult described the outcome of her carer’s assessment as almost insulting given the scale of what’s being asked of carers; her assessment resulted in £300 of support for a year.
“It works out as less than one coffee a week. I personally find it a bit insulting.”
The council team did have some encouraging news, confirming a newly commissioned pilot that will extend carers’ assessments down to those with children aged 0 to16 – a new service that will be delivered by commissioned charity Carers & Communities.
The parent carer of two children with additional needs suggested that the offer of an assessment should be built into every contact with the Family Front Door as standard, in the same way safeguarding is – rather than relying on families knowing to ask, as she had, and still not receiving one.
Staying safe: violence, and nowhere to turn for strategies
The two parent carers of the ten-year-old with autism and ADHD gave a raw account of child-on-parent violence, describing their son biting a chunk out of one mother’s arm during a period of severe distress. When they asked the professionals involved for help, they were told staff were not permitted to share the physical de-escalation techniques used in schools with parents.
“When he’s literally biting onto me and I can’t get him off my arm, a star chart doesn’t help… Parents aren’t taught physical strategies for when they are being attacked. Schools have team teach.”
WPCF’s Hazel Shaw, confirmed this is a pattern, not an isolated case. The PINS project that ran across 32 Worcestershire primary schools surfaced child-on-parent violence as a significantly under-addressed issue, prompting the forum to self-fund a PEGS training session at its own expense, because no other funded route existed.
A related, currently live issue was a change to wheelchair-service eligibility criteria for autistic children, introduced regionally in April. The two parent carers described what a wheelchair means for their ten-year-old son, who uses it to manage sensory shutdown rather than for mobility, and who has now outgrown it:
“It literally makes a difference between us being able to leave the house and not leave the house… having this wheelchair changed our life. We went away on holiday last month for the first time… But [The Wheelchair Service said] no, not really, because he’s got autism and ADHD, he doesn’t have a physical disability… they have no idea how much they’re hurting families that are already struggling to live any kind of resemblance of a normal life.”
What would actually help
Parent carers didn’t just describe problems, they offered practical fixes, many of them low or no cost:
The parent carer of two children with additional needs, drawing on her background as a former trauma-informed-practice team manager, made the case that asking “are you okay” is meaningless without genuine follow-through:
“They’ve got to be prepared for the answer… if that’s not backed up by a supportive response, both emotionally and practically, then it’s just as empty and useless as not asking at all.”
“Trauma-informed practice goes a really, really long way… yeah, okay, there’s an initial expense about upskilling your staff, but the rest of it is pretty much free.”
And more than one carer pointed to the value of peer support itself:
“The biggest thing that keeps me well is the support from other parent carers who get it. Is there room in the strategy to commission more support through these routes?”
Another parent carer highlighted that Worcestershire’s commissioned carer support service, offers little specifically for parent carers, its work being oriented mainly towards people caring for older adults.
What happens next
Steven Medley set out the timetable for the refresh; further engagement sessions continue through September, analysis of all the feedback takes place in October, and a draft strategy is expected by November. Sign-off is targeted at the Health and Wellbeing Board in the first quarter of 2027. Steven closed the session acknowledging how much of what he’d heard reflected badly on the current system:
“I really appreciate your openness, honesty, transparency, right the way through what we’ve been discussing… some of it, quite honestly, as a council member of staff, is sometimes difficult to hear, because we quite obviously haven’t got things right.”
Worcestershire Parent Carers can still contribute to the Carers’ Strategy refresh by completing the WCC online survey that closes on 30th September 2026.
