Hello, welcome to another video. This one is about Carers week, which is an annual campaign to raise awareness of caring, highlight the challenges carers face and recognize the contribution they make to families and communities throughout the UK.

 

 

Carers week is built up by many sponsors and supports and here are a few, Age UK, Carers Trust, Carers UK, Independent Age, Macmillan Cancer Support, MND Association, MS Society, Nutricia – Carers Week sponsor and Sainsbury’s.

In the meantime, feel free to watch the video version of this blog.

Carers week have a theme each year and 2016 theme is building Carer Friendly Communities. What we want as a community is a community that looks after the interests of carers and their families, as does carers who look after those who are unwell.

What is a carer?

Basically a carer is someone who is Unpaid and is providing physical and emotional care. Usually carers and mental health carers can be anyone in the family, it might be someone’s next of kin, but be aware that friends, neighbours can also provide care if they are shown to spend the most time with that person suffering physical or mental illness.

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All people will have this in common, either we will be cared for or will care for someone close in our lifetime, we do not exist in isolation and no carer should have to exist in isolation.

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What makes a community?

Basically we all belong to something. A community is group of people living in the same area, sharing the same resources and having similar ideas. It is said a community to raise a family, but what we would like is communities to help and protect families, that extends to when illness threatens families.

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Within a community we have services, these being the National Health Service GPs, Hospitals, we also have the Local Authority and places were we work and also play. These organisations have a duty to highlight the needs of families and this should extend to carers and their loved ones, but how?

What makes a carer friendly community?

Well what makes a carer friendly community? Usually I would think policies and strategies that support and protect carers and their families, but that is not all. We want such organisations to Talk about caring for relatives in meetings.

We want organisations to help raise awareness by Providing leaflets about carers.

During carers week, and also beyond they can also Invite someone along to talk to about caring.

Carers are a vital part of the family and the families is a vital part of the community, communities help societies become stronger across the nation.

The pledge

We want you to make a pledge to help raise awareness of caring and invite or recommend organisations. Thank you for reading my blog post.

http://www.carersweek.org/get-involved/pledges-2016