Familiy/Carer Support Services
We are here to support carers & families from the hospital stage through to many years post injury.
Headway Birmingham & Solihull is a Delivery Partner of Birmingham Carers Hub, a free service offering a range of support to unpaid family carers in Birmingham. You can access support if you only provide a couple of hours care a week and you don’t need to be in receipt of carer benefits.
To start the registration process with Birmingham Carers Hub, hear about carer information and events or subscribe to Birmingham Carers Hub’s newsletter. Call 0333 006 9711 or email info@birminghamcarershub.org.uk to check if you are already registered. We can also register you by call the Headway helpline.
The Birmingham Carers Hub partnership is managed by Forward Carers CIC and funded by Birmingham City Council, and Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board who are integrated with the Birmingham Children’s Trust.
You can still access our many services whether you are registered with the BC Hub or not, and if living in Solihull.
At Headway, we understand that everyone is different and will need different support at various times during the brain injury journey. Whether you wish to have a chat with someone, ask for practical support, would like to meet with other people who are on a similar journey to yours or need some guidance and direction because you don’t know where to turn, please give us a call.
Our staff can help by listening and offering tailored support to your circumstances. Please call us on 0121 457 7541 Option 1 during our enquiry line times and we will do what we can to help you.
We define a Carer as: Someone who provides unpaid care to a friend, neighbour, or family member due to frailty, age, physical illness, mental health condition, addiction or any other reason, who couldn’t manage without support.
ENQUIRY LINE - Mon-Fri 10.00am - 3pm
Make a Referral to enquire
QE HOSPITAL LINK WORKER
We have a QE Hospital Link Worker who can support you if you know someone who is located in the Brain Trauma wards at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. The QE Hospital Link Worker will be able to help you at the early stages of brain injury and give guidance and specific support. The QE Hospital Link Worker can also help you apply for funding to help with some of the costs (e.g. parking) if the person is in hospital for an extended period of time.
FAMILY SUPPORT WORKER & END OF LIFE CASE WORKER
We can provide a Family Support Worker and an End of Life and Outreach Case Worker who can meet with the family to discuss what support you would like to help you move forward with your life again. We can help put services in place and offer practical support. We can offer Statutory Carer Assessments including Carer Wellbeing Payments. We can advise on our internal support services as well as look at other external services and referral to other organisations.
We also have dedicated BME support worker to support with language and cultural needs, languages covering Punjabi and Hindi.
One of our Support Workers is also assigned to work with those brain injured people who do not have support from family or a carer. They can still access support and brain injury services and be signposted etc.
SUPPORT GROUPS & LUNCH CLUBS
We run a a Carers Support Group once a month. Details can be found by phoning our helpline above. Carers can meet with other carers, share experiences and give support to one another. Please contact us on 0121 457 7541 Option 1 for more information.
TRAINING FOR FAMILIES/CARERS
This is a service that will soon be returning since unfortunately stopping when Covid-19 happened in March 2020. As soon as we have this back up and running, details will be provided here.
COUNSELLING
We are able to offer counselling sessions. We can offer face to face and telephone counselling for both carers and those that are brain injured. Sessions start at £45 for 6 sessions. If you require further details, please contact us on the telephone number above.
FAST TRACK - FINANCIAL SUPPORT
Quite often carers find that the first thing they need is help with finances. We can provide a quick response to specific needs around sorting debts, benefit applications/appeals/tribunals without the need to go on a waiting list. Cost: £30 for up to 3 sessions.
OTHER SUPPORT SERVICES
We can help support you to apply for carers to have respite breaks via Birmingham City Council to enable carers to have time to themselves. Please contact us to find out more information on 0121 457 7541 Option 1.
RESPITE
We can recruit a 1 to 1 worker to support the brain injured person at home and to access activities in the community, whilst at the same time enabling the carer to have a break. We can also make referrals to our programmes which enable carers to have a day free to attend to their own needs.
We are in the process of setting up our WELLBEING HUB where we will provide a variety of services for both the family and brain injured people. READ MORE
Headway Birmingham & Solihull offer a number of services above that families/carers can access mostly FREE of charge (unless otherwise specified) and to meet different needs so call 0121-457-7541 to find out how we can help you.
REFER ALSO TO OUR PAGE ON WORKING CARERS
Across the UK, it is estimated that there are as many as half a million people living with the long-term effects of brain injury. Some of those people have disabilities so severe that they need specialist care in a residential setting, but the vast majority live at home, with partners and parents and other family members who take on the additional role of carer. It is therefore crucial that carers get the right support to help take on this role and that they also address their own health and get 'time out', if they are going to be able to continue in this role.
So, if someone close to you has had a brain injury and you are their closest family member/now their carer,
it may be helpful to know that there are many people who have faced the same uncertainties and anxieties that you
may be feeling. You are not alone and there is information and support available.
Family/Carer Support Services in partnership with:-
