Welcome to my latest blog. As a reminder my blog posts focus on mental health carers, what I mean about that is highlighting the caring experiences of those caring for someone with mental ill health or mental health needs. This latest blog post is about community, because when all is said and done for health and social care, it is how the outcomes impact the community.

Some would say to test good quality wellbeing and a caring community, you can literally pick an area in town and stand there to observe. If you see run down apartments, no one talking to each other, anti-social behaviour, lots of noise and people seeming unwell, then this is a prime example of a community in trouble. When we notice such things, it does not take long to think to ourselves who is responsible for all of this?

I am not saying that all communities are like this, but it is worthwhile to experience what I am mentioning. Of course don’t do this at night especially if the community is known for trouble. Perhaps you might be thinking to yourself, why is Matthew raising this in his blogsite? What has all this got to do with caring?

Well as you can see by my blog title “A community that cares is a good one”. The thing I am trying to point out is because we focus on caring being a personal and private experience. We make the mistake that caring only exists in small confined spaces. We also tend to think that caring can only be applied to those who are unwell and once that person has recovered, then caring can stop. This again does not take into context the importance of caring.

Caring in itself can be applied to so many things, not just the person in themselves, but to caring about the environment, caring about ourselves as in our own wellbeing, caring for the importance of education and caring for community. Make no mistake I am not saying to care about everything, since we do not care for racism, isolation, blaming others or being a general nuisance to others. It is what we care for that counts.

I am fully aware that caring for others, especially those close to us is not a forgone conclusion, since there are many challenges that needs to be worked upon, especially with the new Health and Care Bill 2021 (see my online carers newsletter for more detail). I urge those who are caring, carer reps and the general public to take interest in such bills because it will affect us all.

Going back to the idea of caring in itself, we must take note that a caring community cherishes the importance of not only strengthening caring for others but in caring overall, where a society brings caring about those close to us towards caring for the good of all of us. This is not a simple tasks and almost seems like a utopia because we all have different aims and agendas and I expect those to clash as people do not often see eye to eye, but not all communities are alike, if we find a bad community, then it cannot be the case ALL communities are bad as some are better off, we cannot also think that it is just down to money and resources, because there are people out there working very hard to bring out the best in their own communities.

What is wrong in wanting to live in a community that will reduce isolation, improve health and wellbeing, easier access to social care, less noise, pollution and anti-social behaviour? All these wants and desires being out the best in ourselves and makes us happier in the long run, but we need to understand this cannot be done without the emphasis on care or our mental wellbeing is at risk.

In the end, we are all responsible.