Collaborative Masterclass: Leading for carers
System change, better outcomes, stronger communities.
Across the public sector, we are facing a quiet but critical challenge: a growing proportion of our workforce are also unpaid carers, juggling demanding roles at work with significant responsibilities at home. Too often this remains invisible, yet it is shaping workforce sustainability, service demand, and outcomes for the people we serve. This masterclass invites leaders to reframe carers not as a peripheral issue, but as central to system resilience and reform. By understanding the pressures on working carers, drawing on evidence and policy, and exploring what bold, practical leadership looks like, we can move from reactive support to purposeful system change – building stronger organisations, better outcomes, and more resilient communities.
Learning Objectives:
- Recognise working carers as a critical workforce and system issue, not a peripheral HR concern.
- Understand the pressures and inequalities faced by working carers and how these impact wellbeing, retention, and service delivery.
- Interpret key research and policy to inform strategic, system-level responses to supporting carers.
- Identify what effective organisational and system-wide support looks like, moving from compliance to culture change.
- Commit to practical leadership actions that strengthen workforce resilience, improve outcomes, and support carers within their organisations and across the system.
