The Open University
- Start Date: 25 Jul, 2022
- 4 weeks
- Study Content: Videos
Learn about the importance of informal carers in the social care sector, including their role, rewards, challenges, and support.
Course Fee: Free
Certificate Cost: See Fees and Eligibility
Course Description
This course is made available through the eLearnAfrica and FutureLearn partnership.
Develop your understanding of unpaid informal carers and their responsibilities
What is informal care in social care and what’s the role of informal carers?
On this four-week course from The Open University, you’ll be introduced to the work of those who provide unpaid care to friends and family members in need.
You will learn what informal care is and how it is distinct from other forms of care, as well as what essential day-to-day activities informal carers perform and the issues of dependence, independence, and interdependence.
You’ll then investigate the societal patterns of caring across the UK to understand the diversity of the people who take on caring responsibilities and how these responsibilities shape their lives. You’ll reflect on the impact of caring on the carers’ wellbeing, their motivations, challenges, and rewards.
Discover what support is available for informal carers
You’ll discover what formal support and networks are available for informal carers, how eligibility is determined, how they can be accessed, and why so many people don’t receive this help. You’ll also consider the importance of declaring a caring status and why it is that some carers remain ‘hidden’.
Created by experts in social care at The Open University
You’ll learn from experts at The Open University who have delivered learning for the health and social care sector, working with employers, including the NHS, social services, and the voluntary sector for over 30 years.
This course is for anyone interested in learning about social care. You don’t need any prior knowledge of social care to join. It will benefit:
- Anyone new to social care or those with a basic understanding who want to learn more
- Those considering working in social care who want to know more
- Social care service users, informal unpaid carers, or those who want to find out how to support others in our care system
Certificate cost may vary. You will be redirected to the host page for cost and payment options.
The Open University
The Open University (OU) is the largest academic institution in the UK and a world leader in flexible distance learning.
Since it began in 1969, the OU has taught more than 1.8 million students and has almost 220,000 current students, including more than 15,000 overseas. The Open University is rated one of the best in the UK for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey. The OU is one of only four UK universities to have consistently achieved more than 90% in the survey’s history. Over 70% of students are in full-time or part-time employment, and four out of five FTSE 100 companies have sponsored staff to take OU courses.
The UK’s latest Research Excellence Framework exercise (REF 2014) places The Open University in the top third of UK higher education institutions by ‘research power’ ranking. 72% of OU research submitted was assessed as world-leading or internationally excellent.
Regarded as Britain’s major e-learning institution, the OU is a world leader in developing technology to increase access to education on a global scale. Its vast ‘open content portfolio’ includes free study units on OpenLearn, which has had more than 26.7 million visits, and materials on iTunes U, which has recorded more than 60 million downloads. The OU has a 41 year partnership with the BBC which has moved from late-night lectures in the 1970s to prime-time programmes such as Frozen Planet, Bang Goes the Theory, James May’s Big Ideas and The Money Programme.
All Open University Science courses presented on FutureLearn are produced with the kind support of Dangoor Education.
This institution is available on eLearnAfrica through partnership with FutureLearn.
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Effective Date: September 22, 2016