Aged care navigation, in plain English, for six countries — for families who are tired of being the ones left to work it all out.
I built CarerCompass after watching, again and again, adult children, partners, and siblings caring for someone they love — and completely lost in a system that was not designed to explain itself.
Not lost because they are not capable. Lost because the system is genuinely complicated, the information is fragmented across dozens of government websites, and nobody — not the hospital, not the specialist, not the GP — has sat down and explained it in plain English.
The same patterns keep presenting. The details differ. The walls are the same.
Families who discover, years into caring, that their relative had been entitled to funded home care all along. The entitlement existed. Nobody told them. The money was unclaimed because nobody knew to ask.
Carers who have been providing intensive support for months without ever being told that a Carer's Allowance, Carer Payment, or equivalent exists in their country — or how to access it. The payments are there. They are just not finding people.
Adult children who have flown in from overseas and need to understand an entire aged care system in a weekend. There is nowhere to send them that gives them a clear map, in plain English, of what to do in what order, specific to where they are.
Families who have missed the window for Power of Attorney. Nobody explained that the window closes the moment capacity is lost. By the time they ask, the legal path forward is slow and expensive and painful — and entirely avoidable.
None of this is because anyone failed to try. It's because there's nowhere that lays out an entire aged care system, an NHS care pathway, or a Centrelink entitlements landscape in one place, in the order you actually need it, before you're already in the middle of a crisis.
I kept thinking: there should be somewhere people could go before they get this lost. A resource that explains the system clearly, in the language families actually use, without requiring them to already know what questions to ask.
"The families who navigate this well are not the ones with the most money or connections. They are the ones who know what questions to ask — and who to ask them to. That knowledge should not be a privilege."
It is a free navigation platform for family carers across six countries — covering the systems around the clinical decisions. The funding, the assessments, the legal documents, the services, the payments that go unclaimed for years.
Six countries because the carers who need this most are often navigating from a distance — managing a parent's care from another city, another country, another time zone. The diaspora reality of modern caring is something almost no resource acknowledges.
It is designed to be read in a crisis. At 11pm, on a phone, by someone who is exhausted and does not know where to start. Which means it has to be specific — not comprehensive in the way that makes something useless.
The interactive tools run entirely in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is stored, no account required. The Care Coordinator gives you a personalised action plan. The Entitlements Checker finds what you may be missing — in most countries, that is significant. The 3am guide is exactly what the name says it is.
It is not medical advice. The guides explain systems — how funding works, what legal documents you need, how to access services. They do not tell you what treatment someone should receive, whether a care home is the right decision, or whether a medication is appropriate. Those questions belong with the clinical team who knows your family member.
CarerCompass helps you prepare for those conversations, understand the context, and ask the right questions. It does not replace them.
Every tool runs in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server. Nothing is stored anywhere except your own device. No account, no email, no tracking of what you enter.
The country guides, situation navigation, and system explainers will always be free. The information that helps families navigate is not going behind a paywall.
Researched from primary sources — government and health-authority sites — not generated filler. Citations where the research exists, linked in every guide.
If it would not help someone at 11pm in a crisis, it does not belong here. Every guide is written for someone who is overwhelmed and has no time to spare.
CarerCompass deliberately doesn't put a name, a face, or a professional title behind this content. Not because there's anything to hide, but because the moment a resource looks like it's coming from someone's personal authority, people start treating it as advice about their specific situation. It isn't. The guides explain systems. Your own doctor, lawyer, or financial adviser explains your situation — and those are different things worth keeping separate.
If something here is out of date or wrong, I want to know — it matters. Email hello@carercompass.org. Response times vary.
If you work with family carers — as a GP, psychologist, employer, or community organisation — there are free embeddable widgets you can add to your own website.
Important: CarerCompass provides general information about care systems, services, and entitlements. It does not constitute medical, legal, or financial advice and is not a substitute for professional guidance about your specific situation. Government programmes, payment amounts, and eligibility rules change — always verify current details directly with the relevant agency.
CarerCompass is part of a small network of independently built health navigation sites, all built on the same principles — plain English, country-specific depth, no medical advice, genuinely private.
All projects are built and maintained independently from Queensland, Australia. Operated by Digital Treasure Pty Ltd (ABN 23 696 816 636).
That is enough. Start with your country — everything else follows from there.
Find your country's guide →CarerCompass is free and independently run in spare time.
If it helped, you can support the project.