Carers play a vital but often overlooked role in Australia’s health and community care systems. The WISECARER initiative seeks to improve health and wellbeing across healthcare systems while enhancing the involvement and resilience of carers. Carers are individuals who provide unpaid support to family members or friends with disability, mental illness, chronic conditions, terminal illness, frailty, or substance use issues.
Through social prescribing and improved integration within care teams, WISECARER aims to empower carers, ensuring they are active partners in preventive, holistic care. Supporting and equipping carers not only improves their own wellbeing but also enhances outcomes for consumers, who benefit from more consistent, informed, and personalised support in their preferred environments.
Central to the project is the co-design of a Carer Digital Toolkit to strengthen carers’ health literacy and knowledge, enabling them to participate more effectively in decision-making and care transitions. A Delphi study will be conducted to validate and refine this toolkit, ensuring it meets the needs of carers of people living with mental health conditions.
WISECARER represents an important opportunity to integrate carer perspectives into social prescribing practice, address inequities in carer support, and advance system-level strategies that improve quality of life for both carers and consumers.