IT Officer for London School of Osteopathy and a Carer representative for Maudsley. As you can see, I have many interests shown off my blog. I hope to keep it updated with posts and more things to come soon.
Here is my latest blog post from my carers website. This site focuses on events, thoughts and awareness of unpaid carers, especially those who care for someone with mental illness or suffering through cancer.
For Carers Week 2024, I was back over at the Maudsley site based in the London borough of Southwark. South London & Maudsely were doing a special follow up event from their Carers conference held last year for 2023. During the conference, many carers contributed to a number of poems which has led to the a carer poetry book.
The carer poetry book event took place over at Maudsleys NHS training and events centre, The Ortus.
Over the years, I have attended many mental health and carer events, including attending meetings and engagement events. It was with great pleasure to attend a poetry book launch which was driven by carers from the boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Croydon.
The event was opened by Gabrielle Richards who is the Head of Inclusion, Recover and Professional Head of Occupational Therapy and Allied Health Professionals at South London & Maudsley. Gabrielle also oversees Triangle of Care at the NHS mental health trust.
Gabrielle was joined by carer Faith Smith and Ann Morgan who led on the ideas for poetry inclusion from carers who attended the Family and Carers listening event
Faith and Ann read a number of poems while commenting on the poetry books development. We also heard from Rob Frowen winner of the 2017 Carer of the Year Award and Chair of Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust Service User and Carer Council.
You can also view Ann reading a poem below.
A large number of carers also took turns to read some poems including carer advocate Brenda.
We were also joined by Carer and poet Jo Lambet and myself who also promoted the importance of poetry and how carers can connect and tell their experiences through creativity. Later on during the event, I spoke about the importance of poetry and how this can help carers relate to each other while exploring their experiences of caring and sharing this with others.
I also did a spoken word section from the poetry book I released in 2023, which is being edited into a new edition to include poems from unpaid carers around the country
You can view the section of myself and Jo performing some poetry and my talk about the importance of including carers to give space to poems.
I enjoyed the carer poetry book launch event and hope the book can make history or at least show how carers over in South London can be included to experess their exprience of care via poetry.
Welcome to another carer awareness post from carer activist Matthew McKenzie. This post was done during Carers Week 2024, the theme “Putting Carers on the Map”.
Many up and down the country were busy putting carers on the map, but quite a few were also rewarding those who helped put carers on the map.
I was over in the London borough of Harrow to help celebrate the amazing work Harrow carers does for the community of Harrow for their Carers Week Family Celebration.
Harrow Carers was easy to get to and despite the slight rain, everyone was in a good mood.
Harrow Carers centre supports carers of all ages over the phone, through face-to-face contact, support groups and workshops.
Their services include support groups, counselling, wellbeing sessions, hospital discharge, befreinding, events, advice and information. They also work closely with local and national agencies and can signpost carers to specialised sources of support.
On thursday 13th of June, I attend Harrow Carer’s “Family Fun Day”. A place where carers and the community can come together and celebrate, but also forget about their daily struggles.
While visiting the Harrow Carers site, I was shown around the festivities and facilities that they have built up over the years. Harrow carers have a large park area and have built a Barbecue
I was also shown their wellbeing garden.
I was greated by the CEO of Harrow Carers “Charmian Boyd” who showed me around the facilities. She talked about the special day and my role as one of the 3 judges to judge the “Harrow Carers Awards”.
The nominations for the awards were as follows
Young Carer Award for someone under the age of 18 who goes out of their way to help and support others.
Young Carer Award for someone under the age of 18-25 who goes out of their way to help and support others.
Carer going above and beyond Award for someone who goes out of their way to help and support others.
Longest serving / lifetime achievement Award – A carer who has faced big challenges themselves but has continued to care for someone a long time.
Outstanding contribution to the community Award – For someone who spends their spare time volunteering to support carers and fundraises.
General Practitioner Award – Award for a GP Pratice that has made a concerted effort to support carers.
Social Worker of the year Award
While judging for the awards, I was amazed at how the community of Harrow supported each other and setting up the facilities for the event.
The staff at Harrow were welcoming and supportive. Everyone was so friendly and the food served was very tasty.
I also enjoyed judging and helping to present the awards, as you can see below
Plus enjoyed the music and taking part in the raffle
All in all, I enjoyed spending time with the caring community of Harrow, everyone there has the focus on creating a caring community and I look forward to collaborating with the community in future.
Welcome back to another of my carer blogs during Carers Week 2024. Lots of carer engagement and awareness events are still taking place as we are midway through Carers Week.
As a Cygnet Carers network ambassador, I was proud to be invited to present on my thoughts for Carers Week and the focus as to why families, friends and carers are important to Cygnet. The event was the “National Carers, Families and Friends Network Event”. This event took place over at Cygnet Churchill on Thursday 13th June 2024.
As I entered the premises the Cygnet staff were friendly and welcoming, I felt relaxed but excited at the same time. Looking at the event agenda, we had some excellent speakers for attendees both professional and families and carers.
David Willmott who is cygnet’s Director of Nursing opened the event. David spoke about Cygnet’s passion to engage with carers, but to get it right we need to consider families and carers as the experts.
With the ideas of cygnet’s Carer lead Laura Sheridan, Cygnet has made lots of progress, but there are still many things to develop.
David spoke how important it is to develop ideas with the audience and introduced who was going to speak.
Matthew McKenzie presents the importance of Carers Week
When David introuced my session to present to the audience, I spoke about the importance of Carers Week 2024. I have been a carer most of my life regarding my two brothers, but things became immensely difficult when my mother became diagnoised with schizophrenia. For many years I cared alone for 3 people and the impact it had on me was horrendous. I still suffer the scars of unpaid caring experience, but with the support of Carers UK and Carers Trust I feel I can cope.
My caring role led to carer activism, a powerful role that helps engage with whole communities and charity organisations. I spoke how busy I was doing Carers Week and even provided a poem or two which you can see below.
Also speaking at the event was Dr Neil Churchill who is NHS England’s Director of People and Communities. Due to the election Dr Neil could not say much, but did speak about his own carer experiences and the importance of the NHS. Dr Neil also mentioned what is currently available for carers under the NHS, but things could change.
Next up to speak was Nisha Cunnane who is Cygnet head of Pharmacy Services. Nisha spent 25 years working in Various phamacy settings, including hospitals and prisons. She is passionate about patient education and empowerment, this includes caregivers as she promotes they have a pivotal role in enhancing the overall well-being of the cared for.
Nisha spoke about Empowering Carers when guiding them through medication management. She spoke about what medication management actually means and their challenges to unpaid caers.
These challenges would be carers being overwhelmed with multiple medical factors and trying to avoid the risk to potential medication errors. Spotting side effects are also very important to caregivers of those with mental illness, but it also helps to tackle communication barriers with healthcare providers.
Nisha also spoke about medication adherence and top tips for carers and families. She answered questions about medication safety and medication side effects and she also pointed out the importance of collaboration and access to information.
We then had a carers story and her focus to engage with other carers. This was Veronica Kamerling and you might have remember her from the series of carer activist interviews I am currently running.
Veronica spoke passionately about caring for her two daughters who both have an eating disorder, verconica also spoke about caring for her brother who was diagnoised with schizophrenia. Due to her lived experience and carer activism, she runs her own organisation “Eating disorders & Carers”. She has been associted with Triangle of Care for many years as Cygnet strives to embed the Triangle of care in their hospitals.
Listening to Veronica drove home the memories and experience of my own caring situation. It reminded me why I try so hard to engage and involve unpaid carers in my network and also Cygnet carer’s network.
Other speakers were Julian De Takats who is a Parent and Carer. He is also a Cygnet Expert by Experience Carer Ambassador and helps provide carer awareness training at many of Cygnet hospital sites. Julian’s talk helped remind why it is so important to involve carers in shaing services.
We also had Juliana Onwumere from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience speaking about their focus on families and carers, especially with the new online course for training carers about Caring for People with Psychosis and Schizophrenia
Unfortunately I could not stay for the full event as I was required as a judge for Harrow Carer’s Awards for 2024. Harrow carers ran their “Carers Family Fun Day” for Carers Week 2024. That is another blog for another day.
However for the National Carers, Families and Friends Network Conference, I felt Cygnet put a lot of work into presenting why they do an amazing amount of energy to set the standard of involving unpaid carers.
Welcome back to my carer website. As you might already know I faciliate the London Cancer Caregiver group. The group is supported by several London NHS trusts who also seek feedback on cancer services at 3 of their 8 hospitals.
You can take part
If you have been diagnosed with, or treated for cancer at Hammersmith, Charing Cross or St Mary’s hospitals within the last 12 months.
Or
If you have supported someone important to you who meets the above criteria. For example, you have attended appointments with them or helped them understand information.
If you wish to send feedback please contact – imperial.userinsights@nhs.net
Welcome back to the 5th in the series of carer activist interviews. I have a special treat for Carers Week 2024 as this time I have gone international and interviewed Bernard Coley who is a strong champion for caregiver activism internationally.
Bernard is a carer and also does a lot of work making the carer visible especially regarding the impact of Parkinsons.
He acknowledges there are many challenges facing those who try to connect with caregivers and these challenges are actually similar over in the UK.
You can watch the interview for free below as Benard talks about how important it is for carers NOT to stay silent about their role. There is also discussion on how members of the black community can make a difference when connecting with carers.
Hello everyone. I am Matthew McKenzie, Carer Activist, poet and author. Volunteer for Carers UK, Carers Trust and Macmillan Cancer support to raise awareness of unpaid carers using my lived experience of caring.
At the time of this blog post it is Carers Week 2024. Carers Week 2024 could not arrive at such a better time, especially with an election happening.
For Carers Week 2024, the theme is “Putting Carers on the Map”. I know many carers are facing so many challenges in their role. This could be down to difficultly providing unpaid care, getting engagement from health & Social care services or even being identified as carers.
Many carers up and down the country can be easily hidden, they carry on with their caring role unaware of the support that can be offered to them.
With an election due to take place, the chance to put carers on the map has never been greater. It is an excellent chance to use our voices, experience of care and connections to continue to raise awareness.
So I am counting on many to help raise that much needed awareness of Carers Week. If you are a carer, health professional or someone with lived experience, it might be worth looking out for events from 10th of June to the 16th of June.
I will continue to write and promote carer events nationwide and do all I can to help raise awareness of carers, I hope you can as well. You can sign a pledge on the Carers Week website or you can run an event yourself. There is nothing too small to place carers on the map.
Poem for Carers Week
For carers week to share It helps to be aware That if you really care Listen up for your own welfare
Its best you are not ignored Noted a carer to be on record For support is your reward So social care back onboard
For Carers week is here With events to promote and shareb Its worth attending, just be there To learn about unpaid care
So please dont be ignored It something you cant afford Support and help explored Faith in the system restored
Welcome back to my carer activist interview series. We have a short blog from Antonia who I have known for many years when she was campaigning for young carers.
Antonia is active on her own carer website – Sincere Blog
Antonia is a freelance entertainment writer for over a decade, she works in the charity sector and has been an advocate for unpaid carers for 12 years.
Antonia creates digestible blog posts and social media content about local and national news about unpaid carers. She has created a safe space for unpaid carers via email to talk about the ups and downs of caring, signposting or general life updates.
What are the challenges of your role?
Not being able to help her loved one in certain situations, for example; when they are in pain or trying to balance it all and still have time for herself.
What future projects are you working on aimed at carers?
She is hoping to get back into blogging again and hosting fundraising events for unpaid carers.
What advice would you want to offer carers?
They don’t have to do this alone, whether it’s from a family member, friend, carer support professional or through Antonia’s email which is sincereblog@hotmail.com – definitely reach out and receive any assistance that is appropriate for you and your loved one.
Southwark Carers has been preparing for Carers Week 2024. If you are caring for someone unpaid in the borough of Southwark, check out the latest activities at Southwark Carers.
Welcome back to the fourth carer activism interview video. These interviews discuss with experts of lived carer experience on the focus for unpaid carers. Most carer interviews are based on those caring for someone with mental illness, however in future that might change to include other caring experiences.
The fourth interview was with Karen Machin who is a researcher and carer peer supporter. She raises awareness of the importance of co-production, peer support and research.
A Caring Mind 