It’s Carers Week. Each year, in an awareness raising bid, charities and advocates for unpaid care join forces in support of a uniting theme. This year it’s ‘building carer friendly places’.

But, at Care Full we’re gently prodding the format, and asking whether there’s power in being a little more ambitious?

To us, this framing feels passive. Can a place truly be carer friendly if it exists within an economy that actively marginalises care? Because that’s what we live within. Capitalism, as its title suggests, rewards the accumulation of capital. And so unpaid labour – like care for ourselves and others – is devalued. And when the places we live are defined by the economic model that sustains them, advocating for friendliness to carers is masking a much bigger challenge. 

We know there’s power in naming these challenges, and setting out a more radical case for change. In fact, even starting by framing ambitions a little differently can have a big impact; what if we thought about caring places as an ambition for how we design policies and practice them in community with each other?

Caring places would require us to consider the time, money and conditions in which the places we live and work enable us to care. 

And the path that sets us on can be transformative. At Care Full we think there are three ambitious policy ideas that are already gaining traction and that would free us up to care when we need to in the places we live and work:

1. A four day week: the idea that we normalise a shorter working week without the loss of pay and free up time to care for ourselves and each other. Imagine the difference this would make to attending appointments.

2. A basic income: a model of social security that is available to everyone, with no conditionality, paid for by a progressive taxation system to ensure everyone has the resources we need to care for ourselves and each other. Those extra expenses that are incurred more regularly by those with a relationship to care would become less of a worry

3. A programme of basic services: free provision of the basic services we all need to live, from energy to care, transport to water and more to care for ourselves and each other. Living with a disability, being in ill health or being older would become so much easier if we didn’t have to watch that smart meter as our only means to make ends meet.

This week, we’ll be spotlighting these ideas and their potential for transformative change towards a caring economy across our social media channels. Follow us on Instagram @carefull_economy to learn more about an ambitious and hopeful programme of change.