3 in 5 of us will provide unpaid care at some point in our lives. An unpaid carer is someone who provides help and support to a family member, friend or neighbour who couldn’t manage without their help. This could be due to illness, disability, mental health problems or substance misuse.

Established in 1996, Carers Leeds is a charity that provides information, advice and support to unpaid adult and parent carers across our city. This includes our Advice Line, carers support groups, one to one support and support in hospitals. Some of our services are universal – open to all carers – and some are targeted at specific groups of carers. Our services are provided to all communities throughout Leeds.

We work in partnership with others to deliver our service and to influence them to act to benefit unpaid carers. This involves those working in health and social care and employers. We use what unpaid carers tell us about their experiences and what matters to them, to help create change at a local and national level.

In terms of digital maturity, Carers Leeds has digital as a core pillar of our strategy and we have a digital plan which focuses on carers, staff and systems. We are a Digital Health Hub (‘a dedicated community organisation who have trusted people on hand to help service users overcome digital barriers so they can access relevant information and tools to improve their health and wellbeing’). We have a digital inclusion worker who supports carers to get online and we are doing wider work to increase the knowledge, skills and confidence of our staff to be more digital in their roles.

We have just commissioned an agency to develop a new website for Carers Leeds and we want this to act as a virtual front door for carers and professionals (alongside our Advice Line and drop in/office base). This will be the foundation for us to provide more digital information, advice and support. For example, we want to create an online booking system for appointments, a chat function and online learning platform. We want this to help us reach more, and more diverse carers particularly younger and working carers, who may not access our telephone and face to face support.

We have big ambitions when it comes to digital and would love to recruit a Trustee with the knowledge, skills and a passion for digital, to help us with the next steps in our journey.