Care for the Carers: A Self-management program for carers of people with vision impairment

Abstract

Care for the Carers is a self-management program for carers of people with a vision impairment. The Care for the Carers manual includes all the materials necessary for a health professional to initiate and facilitate a six-session course for carers of people with a vision impairment. Step-by-step instructions for establishing the course and recruiting participants are also provided. The program is underpinned by the principles of self-management. The Care for the Carers program grew out of a series of workshops for carers developed for ABWA by Susan Douglas and Lisa Viska. The Care for the Carers self-management program builds upon these workshops and embeds the principles of self-management in a structured program tailored for carers of people with vision loss. This protocol aims to provide people in a care giving role with the opportunity to gain more knowledge about their partner’s or family member’s vision loss, with practical strategies to assist their partner or family member to manage their vision loss and also with skills and strategies to enhance their self-care. The Care for the Carers program comprised one component of the Vision Self-management in Practice Project, a collaborative project between the Centre for Research into Disability and Society of Curtin University and the Association for the Blind of Western Australia. The project aimed to develop and evaluate new self-management interventions, to provide health professionals with the knowledge and skills to facilitate self-management programs, and to develop organisational capacity to electronically record and monitor participant outcomes over time. The Care for the Carers component specifically aimed to empower people in a caring role, by providing them with information, strategies and skills, so as to increase their confidence in managing their caring role.