Tag Archives: jane

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.

Centre News

We love our Community Activators!

Kath Hooper (middle) with her 'Partner of the Year' award
Kath Hooper (middle) with her ‘Partner of the Year’ award

As part of BANES Council’s Active Lifestyles team, Jane and Kath deliver a range of services to increase the health and well-being of carers. They perform health checks which measure the individual health risks of each carer and help find the right activities to suit carers and their lifestyles.

This amazing service really helps carers, as Adelaide Tiley tells us; “since I started with Jane I’ve really improved. My self-confidence has gone up, I’ve lost weight, and am more active. I want to go out and do things and I feel like I can”. Adelaide cares for husband Brian, who has also seen a positive change – “A couple of weeks ago she told me she was going out for a walk on her own. She would have never done that in the past…it’s a big change for the better”.

Due to all their hard work improving the health and wellbeing of carers we felt it was only right to give Jane and Kath our ‘Partner of the Year’ award at our Celebrating Carers event earlier this year. It’s so encouraging to see that carers benefit so much from a service like this – even better, Jane is running a break in February which all carers can come to! Why not join her for a walk through the two tunnels?

For details on the ramble with Jane Harvey or for more information on health checks, please ring the Carers Centre at 0800 0388 885