Innovations in - Staying well, connected to others and resilient
- Supporting people to contribute and do things they enjoy
Mobilise Online support for unpaid carers
Organisation
Mobilise is on a mission to collect and share the knowledge, wisdom and expertise of the UK's unpaid carers - because together we can care and thrive.
What is the innovation?
Mobilise uses cutting edge technologies to identify, reach and support carers online at scale and at an earlier stage in their caring journey than has previously possible.
By drawing a community together, we are able to facilitate carers learning from the lived experiences and emotional support of others in similar situations.
What is the problem this innovation solves?
Too many carers don't receive adequate support for their caring role until they reach crisis point. By reaching carers earlier (often before they have identified their caring role themselves) Mobilise can introduce preventative interventions. These reduce isolation for the carer and increase confidence in a caring role.
Solution
Mobilise has built an audience of nearly 200,000 carers across the UK. Through digital marketing tools we can use this audience to identify other 'likely' carers by their digital presence.
Once identified, Mobilise links carers into an active community through accessible tools such as email, Facebook and 'Virtual Cuppas' on Zoom.
Mobilise is driven by the community of carers using its services. Not only are they the source of much of the expertise shared on the platform, carers are facilitated to guide the development of new services and tools that meet their needs.
Coaching (strengths-based) principles underly all content, automated interactions and live interactions. The Mobilise staff are trained in strengths-based conversations with carers.
Mobilise builds community capacity by sharing existing knowledge, wisdom and expertise more efficiently.
Evidence base
The Mobilise approach has been created on the basis of research by Dr Warren Donnellan at the University of Liverpool, which indicated that social connections (community) were a key driver of resilience for spousal carers.
Since launching, Mobilise has participated in a number of studies to evaluate impact (opens new window) on carers.
Expected impact
Mobilise anticipates the following measures of impact:
- Increase in reported confidence with regard to caring role.
- Decrease in reported isolation of carers.
- Increased numbers of carers in employment.
- Decrease in demand on formal social care provision (against projected increase)
Stage/spread
Mobilise is currently working with fourteen local authorities, deploying a core service that has reached nearly 200,000 people.
Mobilise is investing heavily in research and development of new tools to extend the services available to carers.
What would councils/health organisations/local areas need to do or have in place to enable it to develop?
The Mobilise system has been designed to work 'out of the box' in a wide range of local circumstances - mostly in close partnership with existing carer support services, boosting system capacity to support carers.
Most councils/health organisations/local areas have found it helpful to run a short-term, low-cost pilot (£15,000+VAT, over 3 months) to establish how the Mobilise platform will work in their area before commissioning a longer-term engagement.
Councils/health organisations and local areas are supported through a light-touch 'onboarding' process which has been designed to reduce administrative burden and meet procurement requirements as efficiently possible.
Mobilise aims to be ready to deploy within fourteen days of a 'go ahead' agreement, and often require as little as 90 mins of onboarding time from commissioners.
What would kill it?
The Mobilise platform relies on carers having confidence that it is: a) a 'safe' space where they can share their thoughts, challenges and frustrations without judgement b) authoritative and reliable.
Accordingly, Mobilise implements robust facilitation to community activity, and quality assures the content distributed with expert input.
Where to get more information
www.mobiliseonline.co.uk/organisations (opens new window)
Dom Taylor, Head of Partnerships
dom@mobiliseonline.co.uk