Tag Archives: club

Breaks, Health & Wellbeing, Information & Advice

2 Ways to Improve Your Wellbeing this Autumn

by Lindsey Clay 

Update 18th September 2018: 

Due to demand we will now be offering an evening yoga and mindfulness 6 week  course, venues and dates the same but with a 6.00pm—7.30 pm time slot.

We are coming to the end of our lovely sunny weather and heading into the beautiful and colourful autumn season. Changes may be happening in our own lives, be it children going back to school, changes in jobs or changes in our own health and wellbeing or that of those we love.

Here at the Carer’s Centre we are always working to help improve the wellbeing of carers within our community through our services. Read on to find out what we’ve got going on…

1. Try our new course of gentle yoga and relaxation

A new 6 week  gentle yoga course on Monday afternoons 1:30pm to 3pm is starting on the 8th October at our Centre in Bath. This is a trial project, so depending on interest from carers we may be able to offer this in other locations around BaNES.

Yoga mats provided (which you can then take home at the end of the course if you wish to help you continue your practice at home).

The course will be lead by Jules Allen who has written a little note about herself below.

I am a Yoga, Relaxation and Mindfulness Teacher, and I work with various organisations across Bath and Bristol. I specialise in teaching yoga, relaxation and mindfulness to people who may be beginners, people who may have health and mobility issues as well as people who have regular wellbeing practices.

Take time to rest and a moment to breathe, stretch & move, meet new people and make new friends as well as everyday ideas, tools and tips for bringing more well-being into their lives.

Having been a young carer, an adult carer and also living with Rheumatoid Arthritis I practice various yoga and relaxation exercises every day and really have valued the overall effect that yoga, relaxation and mindfulness has had for me and with the people I have worked with.

Continue reading 2 Ways to Improve Your Wellbeing this Autumn →

Centre News, Events, Fundraising

Get Active for our 20th Birthday Sponsored Walk

Community Activators and carers stretching before a walk
Community Activators and carers stretching before a walk

February is drawing to a close and the nation is divided on the issue of health – while some people have tried and failed to lose weight in the New Year, others have given up their favourite treats for lent. New fads to improve health seem to emerge every week, but for carers, it can be difficult to keep up.

According to the latest census, carers providing regular, unpaid care for their loved ones are twice as likely to have poorer health compared to non-carers, and almost 700,000 carers reported their health as ‘not good’. A further 35% of carers looking after someone for 20 hours or more reported having a limiting longstanding illness.

While the rest of the nation struggle with their increasing waistlines, we have a service specifically to help carers with their health. Jane and Kath (our Community Activators) have been working for three years to help carers gain confidence and lose weight, and they are continuing to improve the health and wellbeing of carers through breaks, activities and one-to-one meetings for another six months.

Kath and Jane provide personalised help and advice on what exercise might suit you best and special nutritional tips to get you healthy and happy. Their advice has helped over 500 carers and we’re grateful for all the work they’ve done so far – we can’t wait to see how many more carers they will help in the next few months!

Kath and Jane’s next project is getting people on board and ready to take part in the Carers’ Centre’s sponsored walk on Sunday 5th June, to celebrate our 20th birthday. The walk, kicking off Carers’ Week 2016, aims to raise awareness of carers and the issues they face in our community as well as funds for the centre. Kath and Jane will be running weekly walking groups in the coming months to prepare our carers for our trek through the Two Tunnels, so if you fancy raising money for the Carers Centre, please join us!!

Find out more or sign up on our website here.

If you’d like to join our weekly walks or want to take part in the sponsored walk on 5th June, please ring the centre on 01761 431 388.

Carer Stories

Our Support Group Project

Abstract green waveFeedback from our carers is essential for all the work we do here at the Carers Centre. If we didn’t speak to carers about what they like and don’t like about our services, we wouldn’t know the best way of shaping and creating services in the future. From phone calls with carers to giving out feedback forms during breaks, we listen to carers in everything we do.

A key way we get feedback about our services from carers is through our Annual Survey, which asks carers about their engagement with our service and if there’s anything they would change. Last year some carers wanted more regular contact with us, to gain a personal service. To address this, we’re reinstating our befriending service, which comes into force this month.

This shows our determination to include carer views in everything we do, and use their feedback to create better services for the future.

Our new project is no different.

At the Carers Centre, we currently have five support groups on offer, but we’re looking to expand this to help even more carers. We’re holding interviews in March to discuss what support groups carers want and how they should be organised. In the meantime, we’ve made an online questionnaire asking our carers for their views on support groups which can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GLP9WH7. If you’re a carer with something to say then I need your help!

If you’re a carer and would like more information or want to get involved in the project, please contact BANES Carers Centre on 01761 431388 or email holly.turrell@banescarerscentre.org.uk. 

Centre News, Young Carers

‘January Trees’ – Our latest Arts Award evening

art-therapy-career2It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole week since our last Arts Award meeting with our amazing Young Carers! This fortnightly art club takes place at Woodlands and allows Young Carers aged 5-11 to explore loads of different creative mediums, including photography, clay modelling and painting.

As usual, there was a whirlwind of noise and glitter with our young carers chatting away about their Christmas while drawing what presents they got in the holidays. Once again the kids had a good laugh at my drawing skills (which even I admit are non-existent) before we had a break, where the kids enjoyed a huge game of hangman.

Then we got started on our latest project – designing a calendar which will go on sale in 2017. The kids will spent all year perfecting 12 pictures, one for each month of the year. It was so cool to see the kids enthuse about what colours they could use and design the coolest looking ‘January trees’ I’ve ever seen. The best part of this project is that next Saturday we’re taking the kids on a trip to the forest to capture some pictures of trees in January, to practice their photography skills and get some cool pictures for the calendar.

Sometimes as adults it’s easy to forget how tiny things like a game of hangman with your friends, a walk through the forest or the chance to draw freely can be so great, and it’s always lovely to see Young Carers in particular having this much fun, especially given their tough home lives. Their resilience always amazes me and makes me want to work with them even more. Can’t wait for next week’s session!

Carer Stories, Young Carers

Growing Creativity – Our Young Carers ‘Arts Award’ Evening

The logo for the nationwide 'Arts Award' project our Young Carers are taking part in
The logo for the nationwide ‘Arts Award’ project our Young Carers are taking part in

Last night was my first experience of our ‘Arts Award’ – an after-school club for young carers held in our very own Woodlands building. We run two arts award clubs on a fortnightly basis, one for children aged 5-11 and one for young adult carers aged 14-17. This gives young carers the chance to get away from their caring role and enjoy a creative space with other kids who are just like them.

First up was a manic half hour where the children worked on their art books; some drew pictures while others stuck in photos. That sounds simple enough, but with seven of them all working on different things and shouting at each other it got hectic pretty fast! Then we had a quick snack before delving into our main activity: a photo quiz.

Steve (our young carers’ officer) had taken pictures of objects around our Woodlands building and the kids had to take exactly the same pictures, trying to copy the original image as close as possible. Every single detail had to match, which was hard to achieve when half of them were bouncing around the place! It really challenged our young carers to find the objects, achieve the right angle and stand still enough to take a non-blurry pic. Finally, we had a quick run through of the pictures, chose a winner, and the kids went home happy, leaving us with the clearing up!

Despite the mayhem had such a fun time, and the children clearly got a lot out of their activities – it’s so great to put a smile on the faces of young children going through a really hard time. Can’t wait till the next one!