Carers Wales launches ‘Me Time’ a new series of online activities
Carers Wales is delighted to announce a new series of online events to support the emotional well-being and mental health of unpaid carers in Wales. The project, funded by the Welsh Government, aims to provide psychological and emotional resilience support for carers, through sessions covering practical advice, coping strategies and creativity workshops.
The Carers UK report ‘Caring behind closed doors Forgotten families in the coronavirus outbreak’, showed that more than half of carers in Wales have felt ‘overwhelmed’ by caring since the start of the Coronavirus crisis and nearly 4 in 5 are providing more care than before the outbreak began. For 1 in 3, this is a direct result of support services being limited or removed entirely.
These additional pressures have further increased the mental health concerns carers already had, as revealed in the State of Caring in Wales 2018 survey where 3 in 4 said that they ‘suffered from poor mental health’ due to their caring responsibilities.
The combination of more time spent caring and less opportunity to have a break or access wellbeing pursuits has made life more difficult.
The ‘Me Time’ project is designed to fill some of this gap, giving carers access to a safe, free activities in the comfort of their own homes. The sessions, which will be run through the Zoom video conferencing platform, will cover many different subjects from watch-alongs and discussions, wellbeing and mindfulness, physical activities like yoga and arts and crafts. These sessions will be run at different times of the day to accommodate as many carers schedules as possible.
The program has been designed with carer input and will continue to seek further direction from the Carers Wales membership as the program continues.
In the meantime, Carers Wales will continue to campaign for unpaid carers to get greater access to relevant mental health services, as well as breaks and respite care. These measures are critical for the future wellbeing of carers across Wales.
The first Me Time session, a watch along exploration of the pyramids of Chichen Itza, will take place on the 5th August and at least two sessions will be run each week until March 2021.
For more information on the sessions, please visit carersuk.org/wales/help-and-advice/me-time
https://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice
