Welcome back to a brief update of a carers event planned by carer Nadia Taylor (Chair of Carers Network) and myself with support from Cygnet and West London Health Trust. The event was held at Cygnet Harrow, over Harrow on the Hill. The event was called “West London Carers Event” and the theme focused on Carers Rights, carer engagement and carer stories.

As carers of those using or have used mental health services, we feel it is important to have our voices heard. As a cygnet network carer ambassador, I was delighted to have the chance to connect with carers and provide carer awareness to staff who worked at the hospital.

The event was prepared by Afifa Ghouri who is Cygnet’s Senior social worker. She provided a lot of support to the speakers and ushered the audience to learn from various topics.

I have been running a carer group with Afifa for the hospital. We want to reach out to families and carers whose loved ones use the services of Cygnet Harrow hospital.

It was not long we were up on stage to open the event.

We were joined by Dr Azmathulla Khan who is the Medical Director at Cygnet Harrow. It is important to have support of mental health professionals.

First to present was Gillian Kelly who I have known many years for my involvement at West London Health trust. Gillian supported the event, which was carer led and spoke about her story and the vision West London health trust has for unpaid carers.

Where after a few speeches, we then moved on to our first session of the event where Nadia talked about the important of Carer’s Rights and how the charity Carers Network supports carers.

Nadia is a Carer and also an activist and campaigns for unpaid Carers’ rights and recognition, as well as for the provision of the minimum living wage for unpaid carers. Nadia Taylor is the Chair of the Board of Trustees of Carers Network, supporting unpaid Carers in the London Boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster.

Harrow Carers were up next also talking about carer’s rights, but also added how they support carers for the borough of Harrow.

If you remember, they did an excellent community event for Carer recognition awards, which I helped judge. You can see the video below.

It was great to see so many staff from Harrow carers support the event, even the CEO of Harrow Carers dropped by to observe the event and network.

From the images below, Simon Joshua presented on Carers rights.

We hope to see some partnership working with the carers centres in future. We then moved to lunch to network with other attendees.

We got to hear about what people thought of the event so far. It was great to get feedback as we plan to do more events i future. After Lunch we heard from Dr Rosalind Duhs who spoke to us about her Carers Journey regarding dementia. Although her talk was fairly short, I learned a lot from her.

Dr Rosalnd has Strong support from family, the Carers’ Network, Alzheimer’s Society Admiral Nurses, and the NHS have enabled her to do the best that she can for him. She a member of the Dementia Lived Experience Steering Group, Imperial College Care Research & Technology Centre.

We then had Giftie who spoke about her caring journey although she is not from the area, we welcomed giftie as she share the impact of her story. Giftie was also kind to read 2 poems out of my book. I could not do a better job. One of the poems Giftie read was called “Whats going on?” where the poem can be viewed below

Next up to speak was Malcolm Moore on the topic of carer mental wellbeing. Malcolm is an independent producer, consultant and trainer. Since unexpectedly becoming an unpaid family carer 12 years ago, he co-produced and co-facilitated the West London NHS Trust’s ‘Carer Awareness’ training for NHS staff and continues to sit on their Carers Council Board. Malcolm is a former spokesman for the Working for Carers programme led by the Carers Trust.

Malcolm gave an excellent lesson on the effects of caring regarding carer mental health. It is important carers are aware of the mental health and seek support when needed.

The event was closed by Laura who is cygnet’s carers lead. Laura explained about the work Cygnet is doing to engage with carers.

All in all, as carers who want to be heard, we are thankful for the support of Cygnet and West London health trust in helping to give carers a voice. We look forward to using our carers voice to connect with other carers.