Tag Archives: mental health

January carer forum updates 2023

Hello fellow unpaid carers. I am doing a quick update of most of my carer forums that I facilitate in London. These groups focus on mental health carers. Basically people who are caring for someone going through mental illness.

LEWISHAM MENTAL HEALTH CARER FORUM UPDATE

Members of the Lewisham group were interested in how the Ladywell Unit was performing for unpaid carers. The Ladywell mental health unit has several wards. The unit is based at Lewisham & Greenwich NHS trust. We were joined by Inpatient carer engagement Eunice Adeshokan who gave us an update. We were also joined by Cath Collins who leads on engaging carers in the community.

The next speaker was Caroline Norrie who is a research fellow at Kings College London. She spoke about research regarding addictions and the gambling industry.

She kindly passed on details on support services

Online gambling: GamStop is a free scheme that can be used to allow gamblers to self-exclude from online gambling websites and apps run by companies licensed in Great Britain. http://www.gamstop.co.uk

Blocking software: A GamBan software licence enables people to block access to online gambling apps and websites. The licence can be obtained for free if it is requested through the National Gambling Helpline.
https://gamban.com

Blocking gambling banking transactions: Some banks offer blocks on gambling transactions, with some having a 48-hour cooling off period before it can be removed which may help to prevent relapse. For information about which banks offer a gambling blocking service go to: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/public-and-players/page/i-want-to-know-how-to-block-gambling-transactions

It is worth noting that people can no longer use credit cards to pay for gambling.

Betting shops, casinos, arcades and bingo halls:

All gambling premises such as arcades, bingo halls and casinos must be part of a multi-operator self-exclusion scheme (MOSES). This allows a gambler to make a single request (by filling in a form) to self-exclude from all premises offering the same type of gambling, such as betting shops. Once a self-exclusion agreement is made, the gambling company must close the gambler’s account, return money in it, and remove personal details from their databases.

For betting shops see https://self-exclusion.co.uk/ or ring 0800 294 2060
For casinos see https://bettingandgamingcouncil.com/sense-self-exclusion-scheme
For arcades see https://bacta.org.uk/self-exclusion/

For bingo halls see https://www.bingo-association.co.uk/self-exclusionThe National Lottery Healthy Play | The National Lottery (national-lottery.co.uk)

JOINT SOUTHWARK & LAMBETH MH CARERS FORUM

For my Southwark & Lambeth mental health carers forum, we were joined by Toby Lee-Manning who is the Carers Development Lead for St Christopher’s Hospice.

St Christopher’s Hospice exists to promote and provide skilled and compassionate palliative care, but there also should be a focus on unpaid carers who are caring for someone end of life. The difficultly appears when people who are providing unpaid care are not sure what to do.

Luckily St Christopher’s Hospice have developed online courses aimed at carers, this is what Toby presented to our group.

Caring for Carers – online course
https://www.stchristophers.org.uk/timetable/event/caring-for-carers-drop-in-course/

We were also joined by Damian Larkin who is the Digital Health Nurse Lead at South London & Maudsley NHS. Damian spoke about BETH. Basically Beth is a free and secure way for our patients and carers to stay connected with their care team.

If you are interested in BETH – please check out SLaM BETH site

ETHNIC MENTAL HEALTH CARER FORUM

For my ethnic carer forum we were joined by Carers UK. Patrick Knock presented a project where Carers UK is currently working a series of ‘Carers Active Stories’ videos to highlight to unpaid carers the benefits of being physically active from the perspective of a carer giving their firsthand experience.

Here is a video link below

Next was Simon Mayers who is the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead for Maudsley covering the borough of Lewisham. Simon updated the group on how Lewisham is working with the new equality policy. This policy is called “Patient Carer Race Equality Framework”. This framework is aimed at mental health NHS trust across England and it is important carers get a chance to get updates and raise any queries.

We also had Tafadzwa Marapara from Oxleas NHS trust. Oxleas is also adopting PCFREF and it was only fair to hear what they plan on engaging black carers and patients using their services.

Kevlin one of our carer members is heavily involved in PCREF over at the maudsley, so I gave him a chance to update the group. Plus we also had Halima Ali join us to speak about her research project on What are the Occupational experiences of BAME unpaid mental health carers for people with a mental health diagnosis?”

SW LONDON MENTAL HEALTH CARER FORUM

This carer forum is slightly different from my other carer forums. This one covers multiple boroughs as we are developing a strong carers network. This group covers Richmond, Merton, Kingston, Wandsworth and Sutton. We get support from all 5 carer centres.

This group also spends a fair bit of time for carers to update how things have been progressing. We were also joined by Nicole Smith who is a Darzi Fellow in Integrated Medicine. She spoke to the group about Virtual Wards and how they are important regarding the NHS. She is also doing some research.

You can give feedback on her survey at the link below

Virtual Ward survey

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=slTDN7CF9UeyIge0jXdO4_BibUCjlwxKiw29ufBbJcJUNzczUFhSTkVXQVVLTFJRUUpYSDdXSU9GVC4u

GREENWICH MENTAL HEALTH CARER FORUM

This forum is slightly different as it is linked the the Greenwich carer peer group I facilitate for the borough. Greenwich Carers centre help me run the group. This forum runs every 2 months.

The forum was filled with a lot of speakers so I was glad that Oxleas work hard to engage with carers.

We were joined by Catherine Seabourne who is Oxleas Head of Nursing. She talked about her role and answered queries from carers. We were hoping to hear developments from Jason McCulloch who Service Manager regarding Greenwich Carers Strategy, Jason was unable to attend.

We were also joined by Ariane Zegarra and Janice Williamson. Janice is the new Carers Network Lead for Oxleas. We were given updates regarding social care.

This was the January update for most of my carer groups.

Improving Access to Psychological Therapies research – University of Manchester

There is an exciting opportunity for mental health carers and those who have used Increasing Access to Psychological therapies.

Have you used Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services?

If so, you might be interested in helping shape research exploring IAPT services to improve long term benefits for those with anxiety and/or depression. A new Advisory group is forming, but there are limited places.

Please see poster below.

For more information please contact saher.nawaz@manchester.ac.uk

A Story of Hope from the audiobook Providing Care

Welcome back to my carer blog site. I have been resting for a week or so. Well to be honest, I caught a nasty cold. So was not able to do much, but now that I have nearly recovered, I am back to writing again. I am still working on my carer fictional stories. Each story will be part of an audiobook called “Providing Care & Other Short Stories”.

There will be a set of 20 short stories looking into the experiences of carers who fight to provide care for someone suffering mental illness. Each of the stories will have a specific theme. I have turned 3 of the stories into video format already and plan to turn more into videos.

Here is one of the videos below.

Some of the stories will be in an audio format.

I have nearly finished my 7th story called “A Story of Hope”. This story might seem dark in some of the things it raises, but as the title suggests there is still some hope.

The story begins with a young woman visiting a mental health hospital trying to find out why someone ended up in there. It is a shock and a mystery as she is thrown into a desperate situation.

The young woman tries her hardest to fight for the person she loves, but has the damage already been done? She has never faced such a situation before and she does not known who to trust. She is still struggling with the past, but is the past going to catch up with her?

Of course I do not want to spoil the story, but the story does raise important themes on what it is like to care for mental illness.

I hope to finish this story soon and work on the 8th short story called “Discriminated”.

January Carer & Mental Health News Updates 2023

Latest carer and mental health news for January by carer activist and author Matthew McKenzie

January 2023 Carer and Mental Health news <- read more news items here

For the January edition on unpaid caring and mental health we have

Research on mental health family carers during covid pandemic – Jane Lawrance

Wendy Chamberlain MP visits Camden Carers Centre to hear about Working for Carers scheme

The Guardian view on unpaid carers: labour, even if it is for love

Give feedback on care – CQC

Meet the team: Black Thrive Lambeth CAPSA – Maudsley NHS

AHPs Deliver: Exploring the new AHP Strategy and what it means for you – Video

Laura Winham death: Family battled privacy law as sister lay dead

RSA Launches New Carers’ Policy

Mental Health Inequalities in Black/African/Caribbean Community in Southwark

Government mental health strategy update announced

Carers Trust responds to Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care report

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Carer Story number 2 – Digging out of a Hole by Matthew McKenzie

Welcome back to another blog by carer, poet and carer activist Matthew McKenzie. I am working on an audiobook of fiction carer stories. These stories focus on the experience of mental health carers.

When I am talking about mental health carers, I am referring to friends or mainly someone in the family caring for a relative.

The stories are from the audiobook “Providing Carer & Other Short Stories”, the audiobook will contain 20 short stories focusing on the struggles unpaid carers face, young carer challenges, discrimination ethnic carers may face and overall raising that awareness.

I have now released the 2nd short story called “Digging out of a hole“, which can be watched off my YouTube channel below. The story is how a young man struggles to face up to the role of being a mental health carer.

Providing Care – Carer Audio story by Matthew McKenzie

Welcome to another blog post by carer Matthew Mckenzie who raises awareness of mental health carers as an Author, activist and poet. I have been quite busy working on several books, although for this particular blog I am focusing on how my audiobook is developing. This audiobook is called “Providing Care & other short stories”.

You can actually watch my first carer story at the end of the blog.

The audiobook will contain 20 short stories focusing on the experience and challenges of those caring for someone suffering mental illness. Each story will raise common themes mental health carers face, e.g. the anxiety of suddenly falling into the caring role, dealing with carer or mental health stigma, clashes with confidentiality, discrimination and misunderstandings, Young carers, minority and ethnic carers and more. There will be plenty other themes I will be raising regarding unpaid carers.

The first story providing care focuses on a young woman who suddenly falls into providing care, even if she thinks she is not a carer. I do not go and outright tell readers and listeners what is going on, I want them to discover the themes themselves and let me know what they have found out.

A lot of audio stories will be changed into video stories, depends how much time I have on my plate. I am still busy writing the stories and working on a story about a woman in a same sex partnership, unfortunately LGBTQ partnerships can still be driven into mental illness. A lot of the stories I write are quite dark, but those stories do need to be told.

Let us focus on the story Providing Care.

The story tells of a young women named Shelia caught unaware when her husband Tom begins to act strangely. Shelia becomes concerned, confused and wondering what to do next. She is thrown into a situation she has not been trained for as her world turns upside down.

It is not long before Shelia tries to save what is left of her relationship by doing all that she can, but can this be enough?

The story “Providing Care” highlights the sudden realisation of falling into unpaid care, there is little preparation if any at all. You can actually watch the draft of this the story for free by clicking the link below…..Enjoy!!

Providing care & other short stories update for January

Welcome back to another blog post by former mental health carer matthew mckenzie. I am also an author, poet, carer activist and faciliator of carer groups. This blog is going to be a bit of an update on how my new audiobook development is getting along.

The audiobook is called “Providing care & other short stories”. This new audiobook is about the experience of care provided by families to someone suffering mental illness. The audiobook will be my first attempt at fiction, although to be fair I have done some fiction before mainly through blog posts.

The short story titles are as follows (titles subject to change)

  1. Providing Care
  2. Digging out of a hole
  3. A family Affair
  4. Never thought it would be me
  5. Angry
  6. Just when I needed you
  7. A story of Hope
  8. Discriminated
  9. View from the other side
  10. Communication
  11. Banding together
  12. Solitude
  13. Its my right
  14. Wellbeing
  15. Empowerment
  16. Former Carer
  17. Trying to make sense of it all
  18. Young carer
  19. If Only
  20. Until the end

Since the short stories are about providing unpaid care, expect some dark subject content in these stories. The stories might be fiction, but I did want to add some realism. Within each of the stories, there are challenging things that happen to the carers or I could say families and friends. These would be not knowning what to do when someone becomes unwell, encounters with professionals who are not carer aware, struggling with their own mental health and being neglected by health and social care.

It is unfortunate that although many carers do get some level of support, the are those out there going through the same challenges as the carers in my stories

The good news is out of 20 stories, I have finished 4 of the stories. I should pat myself on the back, because I started the project over christmas.

The first story is the main story about providing care, but seen through the carer’s eyes.

The second story is dark with some glimmers of hope when a person is trying to pick up the pieces, but not finding any answers. As the picture shows, there is a mistake as I labelled it

The third story as shown in the picture below shows how not all things are equal in caring

The fourth story regards experiences in the hospital

I am just about to start my fifth story, which is probably quite depressing, but it does open up the struggles of carers and misunderstandings concerning mental illness.

December Carer News Updates 2022

Latest carer and mental health news for December by carer activist and author Matthew McKenzie

December 2022 Carer and Mental Health news <- read more news items here

For the December edition on caring and mental health we have

HSJ Awards 2022 Winners – System Led Support for Carers Award – Video speech of Northamptonshire Carers who won the System Led Support for Carers at HSJ Awards 2022

Caring Together Virtual Carers Conference 2022 – Part 4 of Caring Together’s conference which focuses on Young Carers

Peers call for Government action on adult social care amid claims that principles of Care Act 2014 “not realised in practice” – House of Lords select committee has challenged the Government to introduce urgent reforms in adult social care

Experience of care – NHS England – Experience of Care updates from NHS England.

“We just sit in the house and freeze” – fear and friendship at the warm bank – Liverpool Carer’s Centre  – Liverpool Carer’s Centre acting as a warm bank for unpaid carers

Unpaid carers: The mental health crisis – ONS reveals that a third of unpaid carers are experiencing depressive symptoms.

Coming out of hospital checklist – This will be useful for my carer stalls at hospitals. This helpful checklist on what should happen before the person is discharged into someone’s care.

Young Carers and Young Adult Carers Survey 2022  – This survey is for young carers, so please spread the word.

Services must adopt anti-racist and holistic models of care to reduce ethnic inequalities in mental healthcare – The experiences of people from ethnic minority groups with NHS mental healthcare are being seriously undermined by failures.

The Legal Implications of the Debate Over Whether ‘Extreme Racism’ Is a Mental Illness – Interesting and important news story looking into defining racism.

Holiday greetings from Health & Care Professions Council – Happy Holidays from the HCPC.

NHS in London expands mental health crisis services this winter – NHS in London is set to boost mental health support for people in crisis to ease demand and pressure on emergency services this winter

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More Carer Poems by Matthew McKenzie

Hello fellow unpaid carers. Here are some more poems from my book “The Poetry book of mental health caring”.

Every so often I tend to make videos of my poetry off my YouTube Channel.

The Long Wait – Poem by Matthew McKenzie

The Poem below describes my experiences in a hospital when trying to help my mother who was suffering mental and physical health problems at the time.

The unwanted role – by Matthew McKenzie

This poem below focuses on someone becoming an unpaid carer for the first time. The poem explains from their view that they are slightly aware of the difficulties they will face, but will have to face these challenges alone.

How do I say this? – by Matthew McKenzie

The Poem below explores the struggles a carer has in understanding mental illness. He is aware of the stigma when he is trying to communicate with his daughter, but he is dealt a blow regarding his own caring duties and also to fight to sustain a relationship with his daughter.

The Triangle – by Matthew McKenzie

The poem below explains a mental health policy aimed at NHS organisations to make sure carers are included in services. The Triangle of Care has a long history and is highly sought after by mental health NHS trusts to strengthen carer strategies.

To explore more carer/mental health poems from Matthew McKenzie, you can check out the book below on Amazon.

November Carer News Updates 2022

Latest carer and mental health news for November by carer activist and author Matthew McKenzie

November 2022 Carer and Mental Health news <- read more news items here

For the November edition on caring and mental health we have

Carers Active | Dance – Carers UK – YouTube Energetic dance routine to help carers get active.

Carers rights day 2022 – Bromley Well – Video from Carers Charity Bromley well on information about carers.

Carers Trust research reveals unpaid family carers experiencing unprecedented financial hardship with many now using food banks – News item on national charity Carers Trust report on how farers are experiencing financial hardship.

Cygnet Health – Carers’ Passport Launch – Launch of the new carer’s passport by private mental health organisation for Carers Rights Day.

Caring for the Carers – Hounslow Council offers support sessions on Carers Rights Day – How Hounslow Council is supporting carers for Carers Rights Day.

Who I Am Matters – CQC Podcast – CQC Podcast on the importance on the experiences of people with a learning disability and autistic people in hospital

Actions not words: The Chief AHP Officer Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic Strategic Advisory Group (CAHPO BAME SAG) – Ruth Mhlanga Chair of the Chief AHP Officer BAME Strategic Advisory Group on supporting allied health professionals (AHPs) to work towards being anti-racist and anti-discriminatory

Helen Hayes MP visits the Nest, Southwark’s mental health hub for young people – MP Helen Hayes was joined with Cllr Jasmine Ali to meet staff at the service’s drop-in centre in Peckham to discuss the mental health support provided to young people

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