Welcome back to another blog poster from Matthew McKenzie, carer activist and a member of the Macmillan Cancer Community Network. I chair the National Cancer carer forum aimed at those caring for someone living with cancer.
if you struggle with caring for someone with cancer. As carers, we never want to see our loved ones struggle. But caring for someone with cancer can be incredibly frightening. It’s hard to be strong for them if you’re struggling too. That’s why it’s so important to identify yourself as a carer.
Feel free to watch the short carer awareness video I made below.
By registering at your doctor’s surgery, a carer centre, or a Macmillan Cancer Support group, you can access the support you need. Get the help you deserve. Remember, you’re not alone in this. By identifying yourself as a carer, you’re opening the door to resources, advice, and a community that understands what you’re going through.
You can also register for my online group, that runs the last Wednesday of the month.
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.
Welcome back to a quick update from Carer activist, author and poet Matthew McKenzie. This update is from an event I performed at which was held over the Chestnut Community centre over at Haringey. The event was a spoken word event, which was part of Haringey Service User and Carer Forum.
A quick note is you can actually download poems and listen to songs if you scroll to the end of my update of the spoken word event.
The Haringey Service User and Carer Forum aims to provide a place for past and present service users and carers to learn about new developments and to provide feedback on services.
The forum provides an opportunity for people to discuss their experiences and to share views with staff so that their ideas can help to influence the way services operate. This meeting is organised by Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust.
Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust provides integrated mental health services in Barnet, Enfield and Haringey, and also provides community health services in Enfield. They look after people’s mental and physical health in hospitals or in the community, and provide a range of mental health services for young people and adults.
So for the 8th of July, I attended the spoken word event hosted by Martin Weegmann who is a Clinical Psychologist & Group Analyst at the mental health trust. We were joined by many who also performed, songs, spoken word, poetry and art.
Some of the art presented at the event, I managed to take some pictures. This was in order to help promote the work by Nicola Newman
You can view more of Nicola’s art at her Instagram page.
I was joined by Jo Lambert who does poetry to help express mental wellbeing, mental health experiences and also carer experiences. Jo and myself have a poetry circle to help promote carer awareness. You can watch our performance off my YouTube Channel.
We also heard excellent poems, songs and spoken word performed by others at the event. Obviously I could not record them, but I spoke to a few who loved to have their work shared off my blog site.
A number of songs were performed by Victoria Lamb who has her songs hosted off her soundcloud page, which is linked below.
I enjoyed being part of this excellent group that has a focus of community empowerment.
I often try attend the SU forum when I can as Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust are supportive of my work engaging with carers. I look forward to the next spoken word event.
You can also check out many of the poetry from those with lived experience from the following book which can be viewed below.
Thanks for checking in. I have exciting news for carers from an ethnic background. Wandsworth Carers are running their Bridging Minds forum on the 19th of July from 3 pm, which will take place at Balham Library Hall, 16 Ramsden Road, London, SW12 8QY
BAME forum will be Facilitated by the Community Empowerment Network, Wandsworth Carer’s Centre, NHS Wandsworth Talking Therapies
The forum will focus on discussions around race, ethnicity, and culture in relation to mental health. The forum will feature culturally specific foods, and all Carers who sign up and attend will receive a £30 supermarket voucher as a token of our appreciation for their time and input.
I will certainly be attending this exciting forum and hope ethnic carers who support those with mental illness from the borough of Wandsworth can drop by.
To book please email either Lindsey.cross@soundminds.co.uk or panashe@wandsworthcarers.org.uk
Welcome back to my carer site aimed at those caring for someone unpaid. As a reminder I run several online carer groups, one of them covers the boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth.
News just in for the London Borough of Southwark, that we have our Feel Good Festival for the summer.
The Camberwell Feel Good Festival returns for Summer 2024 with two Saturday festival events, packed full of fun and engaging health and wellbeing activities, free food and music, and vital support services for all ages.
After the fantastic success of last year’s Feel Good Festival, which attracted more than 1000 visitors, SE5 Forum invites everyone to this summer’s festival of wellness, community connection and joy.
I will also be at the festival to promote wellbeing for unpaid carers and also providing information from charities include Carers UK, Macmillan Cancer Support, Parkinsons UK, Age UK, Samaritans and Southwark Carers.
The Feel Good Festival hosts two free health and wellbeing events for the Camberwell community: on Camberwell Green on 6 July and in Ruskin Park on 13 July as well as a community picnic in Myatt’s Fields Park on 27 July.
There will be lots to see and participate at the Feel Good Festival.
During Carers week 2024, I attended and supported a number of Carer events. This blog post is about the event held at Sutton Carers who do a lot for unpaid and young carers for the borough of Sutton.
Sutton Carers provides the following and more for unpaid carers in the borough
Support groups Information and Advice Wellbeing advice Specialist carer support for dementia carers Specialist carer support for end of life carers Specialist carer support for Mental health carers Parent carer support Money advice
Sutton Carers even has a blog section off their website, I have noticed they are often busy campaigning for carers during awareness events. I would like to thank Sutton Carers for including my video for Mental Health Awareness Week 2024
For carers week 2024, Sutton Carers held a carers day at their centre over at Benhill House located at 12-14 Benhill Avenue in Sutton.
Sutton Carers have a range of advice and information on support services aimed at carers, which you can see below
I spoke to a number of staff about the activities provided and was introduced to quite a few rooms. Most importantly I spoke to a number of carers to listen about their caring role, although most felt relaxed and were happy to forget about their worries.
After reading up on a few services, I took the opportunity for a free health check.
I was given the all clear, but I see the importance of having a health check because all too easily, carers can neglect their own health needs because they might concentrate on providing care for the ‘cared for’. Sometimes the stress of caring can also lead to physical health issues, so its worth getting a free health check if you are a carer.
Carers week 2024 is drawing to a close. There were a few carer centre events that I attended in order to support and raise awareness of unpaid carers. One of the events was from the Ealing Carers Partnership event.
Ealing Carers Partnership is a new service supporting adult unpaid carers in the Borough of Ealing by providing Wellbeing activities and respite care. The service is funded by Ealing Council.
It was with great pleasure to be invited to support Ealing Carers Partnership and help raise awareness for the borough of Ealing.
London Borough of Ealing
Ealing Carers Partnership is a collaboration between Harlington Care, Carer’s Trust Hillingdon and Ealing and Hounslow Community Voluntary Service. As mentioned from the poster above, Ealing Carers Partnership provided 2 carer events.
I supported the event at Sycamore Lodge with my Carers Stall.
We had a number of other stalls at the Carers event. The stall next to me was the diabetes awareness stall. My late mother suffered with diabetes, so the stall meant a lot to me. I must thank Diabetes UK for handing out a lot of leaflets for me to promote.
We also had a stall from Dementia Concern. Dementia Concern has been providing support services for people with dementia and their carers in the London Borough of Ealing since 1982.
Dementia concern is a unique charity with specialist expertise. They have developed our knowledge over many years by working closely with local partners, GP surgeries and wider health organisations, such as the West London NHS Trust.
The direct services offered are:
Dementia link workers supporting acute health needs Information and advice through dementia advisers Weekend social clubs at two venues Community support service for people with dementia living alone Dementia cafés for patients and their carers Activities for carers
Another stall I visited was the Ealing Special Educational Needs and Disability Information and Advice Support Service (SENDIASS) which offers free, confidential, accurate and impartial advice and support to families living in Ealing with a child up to the age of 25 who has special educational needs or a disability (SEND).
We also had a stall from the Ealing Community Partners. ECP is led by West London NHS Trust, and all services in ECP are delivered under the direction of West London NHS Trust.
This stall was the Care coordination service which aims to keeps patients with complex health and care needs well at home.
Energy and payment support services
There were also stalls providing information to help tackle the cost of living. One stall was from the National energy action.
National Energy Action is the national charity working to end fuel poverty in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Find out more about the challenge we face, the difference we make, and the difference you can make.
The other energy support stall was from Green Doctor.
Green Doctor offer free, impartial advice to help people take control of your bills, save energy where possible in the home, and access other services and initiatives available. They can provide different kinds of support, whether that’s advice on paying off debt with energy or water companies, or spotting other concerns for a referral to other services.
Other stalls present at event
During the event, we all were invited to speak about our stalls. I spoke on providing information from Carers UK, Macmillan Cancer Support, Parkinsons UK and other carer support information
Ealing carers partnership event allowed me to read a carer awareness poem from my book. I also presented the carers centre with my poetry book and signed it for them.
All in all the event turned out very well. My carer stall was very busy with visiting carers asking advice and information.
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.
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
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.
A Caring Mind 