March 21 marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which is a day recognised across the world to remember, reflect, and take action.
This day was established following the tragic events of the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa in 1960, where peaceful protestors lost their lives while standing against injustice. It is a reminder of how far we have come, but also how far we still need to go.
Racism is not just something we read about in history. It continues to exist in our societies, often in ways that are subtle, systemic, and deeply embedded. It can affect people’s opportunities, their confidence, and their sense of belonging.
As a carer activist, I see the impact of this in mental health and support systems. When people feel unheard, misunderstood, or treated unfairly, it can have lasting effects on their wellbeing. Care should be equal, compassionate, and inclusive for everyone.
This day is not only about raising awareness, but about encouraging action. Each of us has a role to play in challenging discrimination and promoting understanding.
That might mean listening more carefully to others’ experiences, educating ourselves, speaking up when something isn’t right, or simply showing empathy in our everyday interactions.
Change doesn’t always come from big gestures. It often starts with small, consistent actions.
March 21 is a reminder, but I think the responsibility is ongoing.
The question is: what will you do to stand against racism?
If you’re a Black unpaid carer, you already know what it means to carry a lot responsibility, love, pressure, and often, silence. Whether you’re supporting a parent, partner, child, or friend, your role is vital. But too often, carers are left out of conversations about mental health, support systems, and services that are meant to help.
That’s why the upcoming Black Mental Health: Early Access, Prevention & Culturally Safe Pathways Conference is worth your attention.
This isn’t just another event. It’s a space designed with our communities in mind, where lived experiences are recognised, cultural understanding is centred, and real conversations can happen.
Why attend if you are a Black unpaid carers
Many Black carers face unique challenges:
Navigating services that don’t always understand cultural context
Experiencing stigma around mental health within families or communities
Feeling isolated, overwhelmed, or unsupported
Struggling to find information that reflects their reality
This conference creates a rare opportunity to step into a space where those experiences are not only acknowledged but taken seriously.
What you can expect
This event brings together professionals, community leaders, and people with lived experience to explore how we can improve access to mental health support and create safer, more inclusive pathways.
You’ll find:
Open conversations about care, connection, and change
Guest speakers sharing insight, expertise, and lived experience
Practical information on accessing support earlier and more effectively
A community atmosphere where you can meet others who understand your journey
There will also be food, a marketplace, and informal opportunities to connect—because sometimes the most powerful support comes from simply not feeling alone.
Why your voice matters
As an unpaid carer, your perspective is essential. Systems can’t improve without hearing directly from those who are navigating them every day.
Attending this conference is not just about receiving information it’s about:
Sharing your experiences
Influencing future services
Building connections with others in similar roles
Finding new ways to support both yourself and the person you care for
Taking a moment for yourself
Carers are often the last to prioritise their own wellbeing. This event is a chance to pause, reflect, and invest in your own mental health without guilt.
You deserve support. You deserve to be heard. And you deserve spaces that understand you.
Today is Young Carers Action Day, a time to recognise the incredible strength and resilience of young people who care for others.
As someone who cared for my brother who has autism while growing up, I understand how caring can shape a young person’s life. It can build compassion and responsibility, but it can also bring challenges that many people don’t see especially when it comes to balancing school, friendships, and your own mental wellbeing.
To see my video promoting Young Carers Action day 2026, please view below.
This year’s theme, Fair Futures for Young Carers, is an important reminder that young carers deserve the same opportunities as everyone else to learn, to thrive, and to look after their own wellbeing too.
Young carers should never feel invisible. They deserve recognition, understanding, and the right support in their schools, communities, and workplaces.
Today as of this blog and video, I encourage everyone to take a moment to learn about young carers, listen to their stories, and help create a future where every young carer feels seen, supported, and valued.
Young carers across the UK continue to receive growing recognition and support from organisations, communities and government. For example, Carers Trust leads Young Carers Action Day, encouraging schools, employers and communities to ensure young carers have fair opportunities. Local authorities such as Royal Borough of Greenwich have also highlighted their commitment to supporting young carers through local services and awareness campaigns. Media outlets like BBC Newsround have helped raise awareness among young audiences by sharing stories about the experiences of young carers. In addition, initiatives such as Going Forward into Employment (GFIE) highlight wider efforts to create opportunities for carers and under-represented groups.
It is also important that support reaches ethnic minority carers, who can sometimes face additional barriers such as cultural stigma, language barriers, or limited access to services. Organisations such as Carers UK and community groups working with Black, Asian and minority ethnic carers continue to call for more inclusive and culturally sensitive support.
I feel Unpaid carers play a vital role in supporting loved ones experiencing mental health challenges. Much of this caring happens quietly in homes, during sleepless nights, through appointments, advocacy, and everyday acts of protection and support.
For many carers from minority communities, this experiences also includes navigating the cultural understanding, language differences, and systems that sometimes do not always recognise or reflect communities. Despite the knowledge carers hold, I feel our voices can sometimes feel overlooked in those decisions about care.
I recently wrote and recorded a short spoken word poem titled “Nothing About Us Without Us.” This poem reflects a simple and important message: carers bring lived experience that should be included in conversations about mental health services.
The poem is taken from the book I am developing called “Unpaid, Unseen and Yet Unbroken”
Carers are not just supporters in the background. Carers can carry knowledge shaped by lived reality by caring, advocating, and supporting our families through complex systems.
The poem also speaks to the importance of co-production. When carers, communities, and professionals work together, services can become more understanding and culturally responsive, and equitable.
I think this message is especially relevant to ongoing work around the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF), which encourages meaningful involvement of people with lived experience in shaping mental health services.
The poem is a small creative contribution to that conversation. It invites us to reflect on a few simple questions:
Are carers from different backgrounds being listened to?
Are those lived experiences shaping services?
Are decisions being made with carers, not about them?
Listening to carers is not just a gesture of inclusion it can lead to better understanding, stronger partnerships, and better care.
If you would like to watch the poem, you can find the video here:
I hope my poem encourages reflection and conversation about how we can continue building services with communities, and not just for them.
Chairing the recent Greenwich Mental Health Carers Forum reminded me yet again why these spaces are essential. This is because carers are carrying enormous pressure, often quietly, and if we don’t create structured spaces for them to speak, the system will simply move on without them.
I opened the forum by introducing myself through a lot of organisations via activism. I reminded everyone that while this is a Greenwich forum, it connects to national networks. The issues we raise locally are part of much bigger structural conversations.
But before policy, before strategy, before campaigning, we always start with lived experience.
When Carers Are Left Without Safety Nets
One carer shared something that should concern all of us: their mental health medication had been abruptly stopped pending a review. No advance warning. No contingency. No safeguarding plan despite them being a full-time carer and working as well.
That situation highlights a critical flaw in our systems: carers are often treated as separate from the care infrastructure, even when their own stability directly affects the person they support.
When a carer’s health is destabilised, the entire care structure is destabilised.
We discussed practical escalation routes suh as contacting care coordinators, speaking to mental health nurses at GP practices, ensuring issues are documented. But the bigger question remains: why do carers have to fight for continuity in the first place?
National Issues Carers Need to Be Aware Of
A significant part of the forum was focused on national developments. If carers don’t understand the wider policy landscape, it becomes harder to challenge decisions locally.
Carer’s Allowance and the Overpayment Scandal
Organisations like Carers UK continue to highlight two major issues:
Carer’s Allowance remains one of the lowest benefits of its kind.
The overpayment recovery system has been excessively punitive due to automated earnings thresholds.
The “cliff edge” earnings rule forces working carers to limit hours to avoid losing their allowance entirely. That is not a supportive system — that is a trap.
The Missing National Carers Strategy
The last national carers strategy was published in 2018. Since then, there has been no overarching cross-departmental framework.
That absence creates gaps between:
Department of Health and Social Care
Department for Work and Pensions
NHS England
Without coordination, carers fall between systems.
Groups such as Carers Trust and Age UK continue to push for renewed oversight, but until there is political will, carers remain structurally vulnerable.
NHS Pressures and Workforce Gaps
Research from The King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust continues to highlight workforce shortages and structural underfunding.
Carers feel this directly:
Delayed appointments
Limited respite
Reduced community follow-up
Poor continuity of care
When the NHS workforce is stretched, carers absorb the overflow.
The Economic Value of Carers
Unpaid carers save the country an estimated £160 billion annually effectively the equivalent of running a second NHS.
And yet, carers are still asked to “do more with less.”
That contradiction must be challenged.
Digital Transformation and AI in Healthcare
We also discussed the NHS push toward digitisation and artificial intelligence. Carers UK recently circulated consultation material on AI in healthcare.
Digital transformation can bring opportunities, but we must ask:
Are carers being consulted?
What about digital exclusion?
How will AI decision-making impact safeguarding?
Carers must not be the last to know when services change.
Mental Health Act Reform – A Major Change
The Mental Health Act has now received Royal Assent. One of the most significant changes concerns the introduction of a “nominated person.”
While intended to strengthen patient autonomy, it may in some circumstances sideline primary carers if relationships are strained or confidentiality is invoked.
This has serious implications:
Access to information
Involvement in care planning
Safeguarding
We will be inviting Mental Health Act leads to discuss this further. Carers need clarity before implementation impacts them.
Why I Continue to Chair These Forums
Some may wonder why I continue to run multiple carers forums local and national.
The answer is simple.
Because carers are often spoken about, but not spoken with.
If we do not build organised, informed, connected carer communities, systems will continue operating without meaningful accountability.
Every forum is an opportunity to:
Share escalation routes
Connect carers to national advocacy
Surface systemic gaps
Build confidence
Strengthen collective voice
Greenwich carers deserve to be informed, protected, and empowered, not reactive and firefighting.
As always, I will blog the full national updates separately so carers can reference them. The forum is not just a discussion space it is part of a wider campaign for recognition, reform, and respect.
A Caring Mind 