Support sought to Sponsor a Carer

Running from October 4-6, 2017 the conference, entitled ‘Caring into the Future: the new world?’ will focus on innovation, partnerships, future challenges and new opportunities as well as provide the forum to take stock of where caring is at now, and to re-imagine what it will look like in the future.

Calling our unpaid carers the ‘hands on experts’, Carers Australia Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ara Creswell says they have launched a Sponsor a Carer program to assist as many unpaid carers as possible to make it to the conference.

“This conference is as much for carers as it is for researchers, service providers, policy makers, or anyone in the business and community sectors,” Ms Cresswell says.

“To help carers who would like to attend, but who would not otherwise be able to, we have established the Sponsor a Carer program and are looking for donations of any size.”

With the replacement value of unpaid caring by Australia’s 2.7 million carers estimated to be $60.3 billion annually, Ms Cresswell says without carers, aged and disability care would simply be “unaffordable”.

“We want them to be involved in discussions around challenges and achievements – they are the hands-on experts,” she says.

With the funds raised through incoming donations, Ms Cresswell says Carers Australia will contribute up to $750 each to as many carers as they can, which will go towards registrations, travel and accommodation costs or replacement care for the person they care for.

“We know carers want to come to the conference because we get dozens of emails and phone calls a week,” she says.

“These are young carers, older carers, carers who work or want to work, carers of family or friends with mental health issues, dementia, intellectual or physical disabilities and chronic illness.

“The number of carers selected through our Sponsor a Carer program is completely reliant on the number of donations we receive. So please, dig deep and donate as much as you can to this very worthy cause.”

The conference will include 120 papers, including workshops and symposia, across the three days covering topics such as carer health and wellbeing, social and assistive technology, national and international research, combining work and care, Indigenous caring, male carers and peer carer support.

To donate or find out more about Sponsor a Carer, email, call 02 6122 9924 or register for the conference online.