Welcome to another quick update from my carer forums that I host. The forums are aimed at friends, families and unpaid carers who care for someone suffering mental illness. Here is the update from my Lewisham mental health carer forum for March 2022.

Speakers

Annie Dransfield – Carer Author of the book Releasing the Compassion.

• Annie Dransfield presents.

Before I update on Annie’s presentation. I am developing a carer author circle, I only started the group this week for carer’s week and it is a little quiet, but the group has started. There are at least 5 to 6 of us and evetually we will try our best to support each other and promote the cause of caring.

Annie mentioned that her son was born with a lack of oxygen, which resulted in him having cerebral palsy down his left side and having special needs. She didn’t realise that she was a carer at that time, because it never crosses your mind, she just knew that she has a baby, and he needs looking after. Everyone knew he needed a lot of care and attention, and needed to find out how they were going to deal with the cerebral palsy.

In fact it wasn’t that severe that he needed to be in a wheelchair, but as he got older, due to the complications at birth, he was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. So, all through these years that she has been caring, she has come up against a lot of injustices. These injustices drove her to write the book.

Ann just felt it was a constant battle when you are caring and that you’re dealing with every single aspect of a person’s life. So you’re dealing with so many organisations like benefits, like Social Security, like housing, all these things, every single aspect of a person’s life. One of the bigger challenges was her son getting into debt quite often and having to deal with the banks. The banks seemed to not be too carer friendly and this made life very difficult for Ann and her son.

Ann was very involved with Leeds partnership NHS Foundation Trust. She was a governor for the mental health trust, but this all started when her son became more unwell. As Annie has been caring, she got involved with care support groups. She then got onto different boards, anything to do with caring, carer involvement, parent participation, participation groups, then she became a governor for the leads and York partnership NHS Foundation trust. Annie then became a trustee for carers UK, which she has just since retired.

Annie feels that she has got more of an understanding of the complexities due to expericing all the injustices that she has had to deal with for 43 years. In the end it prompted her to write the book. It’s been bubbling up inside of her for three years. She felt that she had to get this message out, even if it’s just to give hope to new carers that can pick up some hints and tips from the book.

The book “Releasing the Compassion: An expose of the threat that is binding the hands of our community’s most needed carers” is intended as a learning resource as well for NHS students in mental health. It’s intended as a learning resource for professionals like corporate independent businesses e.g. the banks.

You can buy Annie Dransfield’s book on the link below

https://www.waterstones.com/book/releasing-the-compassion/annie-dransfield//9781919606309

• Questions and comments from carer members

How can we protect our loved ones from financial problems and abuse?

What is that lasting power of attorney or warranty?

I think if with COVID, there was ripe opportunity for some fraudulent behaviour to go on, because people couldn’t leave their house. They did put measures in place and other post office did saying you could nominate someone to go and collect your money

I cannot wait to order your book. I can also say I have experience in trying to deal with banks and the problems of them struggling to secure the debts of someone suffering mental ill health.