We spoke to James from Mobilise

I recently met James Townsend, the CEO and founder of Mobilise, the online service that harnesses the collective knowledge, wisdom and expertise of unpaid carers to share with other carers. The whole aim of the organisation is to empower those that care to thrive. A mission Carers Collective can get behind!

I asked him about his journey and was so inspired by his dedication to and love of what he does. You can watch the whole interview over on Facebook.

Tell me 5 things about you.

1.   I am a country boy. I grew up on a farm in Gloucestershire. Although I live in London now, I will always be a country boy at heart.

2.   I love travelling, which has been difficult over the last couple of years. I love getting out in nature to hike or climb.

3.   I used to work in the school’s teams for the Church of England, providing training to enable head teachers to learn from each other.

4.   I was once an organist. As a kid I loved playing the piano but realised I could make much more noise and be much more disruptive with an organ.

5.   I have newly become a gardener. I moved house recently, and it’s the first time I have had a garden and I bore my colleagues talking about my honey suckle.

What led you to what you do?

I originally trained as a teacher in Manchester. There was such a range of experiences there. I saw very bright, enthusiastic and energetic children but without the opportunities that others had. A key thing for me was seeing there was so much potential in all of us. Teaching is about drawing that out. It’s not about filling a bucket. Knowing that there is knowledge, wisdom and expertise out there within carers has come from my teaching experiences.

What’s your role as a carer and who you care for?

I think I am like a lot of others as I had not thought of myself as a carer until I worked with Mobilise.

My mum was diagnosed with MS when I was about 5. She manages her condition exceptionally well, but we have been through that journey. One thing that really frustrated me about it all was it felt like we were learning that process like it’s the first time anyone had ever done this. When realistically millions of people are caring for a family member and it’s a regular part of family life, and an important part of family life.

What age did you realise your mum needed help?

I became aware of it when I was around 15 or16. I was conscious that it was beginning to have an impact on her life and some of the choices she was making.

What impact did the Pandemic have on you all?

I don’t live with my parents, but for the purpose of lockdown I moved down to the farm. There was a lot more space so I could isolate there with them.

It had a positive effect on the launch of Mobilise as it meant I could spend all of my time on this rather than my social life. In some ways, it was an excuse to knuckle down and not think of anything else. It was also nice to spend some extended time with my parents as an adult, as it’s not something I had the chance to do before.

How did you come up with mobilise?

As carers, each of us builds up a lot of knowledge, wisdom and expertise. I wanted to mobilise what was already out there.

We don’t need to teach anyone anything or come up with new ideas - it’s all been done already. My work is to mobilise it - to get it from one person’s brain and into the brain of someone who needs that information.

I met an inspirational guy called Kyro who, like me, had been caring for his mum and had been through a similar journey. We shared a vision to use technology to democratise and mobilise that knowledge, wisdom and experience to benefit others. We were then joined by another co-founder, Suzanne Bourne. Our shared vision was to enable carers not just to cope or manage, but to thrive in their caring role. This is not to belittle the impact of caring and just how tough and messy it can be, but let’s not lose sight that we could be thriving.

Between us, we set out on a journey, made a bunch of mistakes, got things wrong, and stumbled across this wonderful concept of bringing the community together through technology and using online tools.

Technically, we started in 2019, and got our first local authority contract towards the end of 2019. Covid hit and suddenly the idea of moving carers’ support online became very fashionable. We moved quickly to ensure carers were getting the support they needed during that time.

We have learnt that the carers we speak to love simple technology so we use emails, texting, and Facebook. Basically all the channels carers are already using. They don’t have to learn anything new at the moment. In the long term, we would like to develop an app.

We provide automated tools because so many of the same questions come up again and again. But you don’t get a generic response, as that is frustrating. When a carer has a question, they get a tailored response. So much of a carers role is ‘navigating the system’, so making it easier to navigate and giving confidence they have the right answer is key to us.

Where can people find you?

Our website is full of information and resources (link website).

We have a community in Facebook group with around 16,000 carers that we engage with. Those interactions drive content we know will be helpful to others, as it’s based on practical wisdom.

How are you funded?

The local authorities are the paying client. The user is the unpaid carer at the end.

The benefit for the local authority is we can reach a much larger number of carers in their area than they can. We are able to reach a different group of carers and are reaching them earlier. Our goal is to reach them two years before they would normally reach out for support.

We have just found out that 70% of the carers engaging with our tools have never engaged with formal support for their caring role before. That’s so important to us!

If your postcode is in a local authority contracted area, then we can offer a full suite of resources. But whether or not you are in one of those postcodes, check us out, there are still plenty of valuable resources on our website.

How do you find the carers?

We have a sophisticated digital methodology that engages with over 300,000 carers. We use that audience to identify those who are likely to be a carer even if they have not identified themselves as one and we can reach them online. This means more and more carers are getting the support and information they need early on.

We are probably most famous for our virtual cuppas, although it’s a small thing we do. Every day we hop on a zoom call and we can all share what we are dealing with, our knowledge and wisdom with each other.

I am really proud of it all. The thing that really makes it what it is, we can draw on that combined wisdom from people who have been there and are walking this every day and know what it is to be a carer. The content is valuable but also the tone. I hope that people who join this community feel that they have found their people.

We want to thank James for taking the time to share this with us. Please check out the Mobilise website, they have a host of resources to help every carer.