May 2022 Newsletter - Young Carers
In this update
- Supporting service change through young carer's voices
- Theatre Royal Plymouth - Our Space 16-25
- BYCS Paint Party Activity Day
- Carers UK Health and Care Bill
- Young Carers Easter Half Term
- Carers Week
- Welcoming Services
- The Hope Programme for Carers
- Become a facilitator
Welcome to our latest newsletter, which we hope you find useful and informative. If there's a colleague or another provider in your network that you think would like to receive the newsletter, please feel free to forward it onto them.
Please let us know if you have anything you would like us to share or publicise in a future issue.
Supporting service change through young carer's voices
NHS England Young Carer Health Champion Programme
Plymouth City Council Youth Worker Sharon Shand and Young Carer Health Champion Laura Redman finally got to attend the first of three NHS Health Champions Residential. They left Plymouth at 6 am on Tuesday 12th April, and travelled by train to Condover Hall Activity Centre in Shrewsbury. This was an amazing experience for Laura who represented Plymouth Young Carers in such a positive way. It was also an opportunity for Sharon to meet up face to face with the NHS Health Champion Project Workers and network with Young Carer lead workers from across the country.
Laura has fully committed herself to the Health Champion Programme over the last year, putting herself forward, challenging herself and always being open to learning new skills. This residential was the opportunity to work alongside other Health Champions, NHS project workers and other organisations to continue the work of raising the profile of young carers, their needs and key messages.
Young Carers created 5 top tips for GP's, so doctors could understand young carers' needs, and respond more effectively to them.
The Health Champions got to work alongside The Reporters' Academy | A unique 'not for profit' media production company that positively changes the lives of young people (thereportersacademy.com) to develop one of the 5 top tips into a vlog of about 30-60 seconds, to engage GP's about young carers needs.
Over the 2 days, Laura learnt how to use social media to influence, promote and improve young carer identification. Alongside how to create and film vlogs that are useable, snappy and concise. This has become one of Laura's strengths, she is a natural!
Overall, this residential was an amazing fun-filled 2 days of adventure. From laser maze, circus skills, and challenging high ropes to creating, filming and edit vlogs. New friendships were made and there was a real buzz around the next Residential in London at the end of July 2022.
Theatre Royal Plymouth - Our Space 16-25
Off the back of our successful campaign with 'Cardboard Citizens' we realised that there needed to be a provision for young adults between the ages of 16-25, that could run alongside our regular 'Our Space' group. So, we have set up an Our Space 16-25 group.
It's a creative programme that works with young adults with lived experiences of homelessness, mental health issues, reoffending, or feeling socially isolated for other reasons.
This programme will run every Thursday, 10 am to 12 noon, at TR2.
This is a free project, with refreshments and a shuttle bus from town provided.
If you are working with anyone who might be interested in joining this project please email ryan.wilce@theatreroyal.com, and we can arrange a meeting/phone call to discuss the opportunity further.
BYCS Paint Party Activity Day
During the Easter break, workers from the Barnardo's Young Carers Service ran a Paint Party activity day for a group of our young people. We were lucky enough to have Maria, a local artist, support the young people by showing them step by step how to paint a picture of their choice. The paint party was a fantastic way of bringing young carers together to create friendships, try new skills and allow them to have fun and be themselves away from the things they have going on in their home life.
We started the session with a collaborative painting exercise. With each young person standing around a big sheet of paper, and only one colour of paint each, they were given 30 seconds to try and paint a picture. At the end of the 30 seconds, they had to move along to where the next young person had painted their picture and this continued until together, the group had filled the entire sheet, contributing to each other's pictures. The young people loved this as it was the perfect ice breaker for the session, and it created a great atmosphere in the room.
The group was very diverse in terms of their confidence when it comes to painting and creativity abilities, so it was lovely to see them all supporting and helping one another during the session. The results were incredible and there was a huge sense of pride from all the young people as they realised what they had been able to paint.
Carers UK Health and Care Bill
The amendment to the Health and Care Bill, which was passed in the House of Commons having been brought forward by the Government, places a new duty on NHS hospital trusts in England to ensure that unpaid carers are involved as soon as feasible when plans for a patient's discharge are being made. The amendment covers all carers of adults in England needing care and support following hospital discharge, including young carers looking after adults.
Carers UK welcomes Government amendment to Health and Care Bill to retain rights of unpaid carers
If you have any questions about the Health and Care Bill and how this affects you, please do not hesitate to contact policy@carersuk.org.
Young Carers Easter Half Term
Week One saw 55 of our young carers getting creative at Honicknowle Youth Centre throughout the week. . Lots of Easter arts and crafts, games, baking, an Easter egg hunt, and back by popular demand 'Fill your Easter Egg'. They made use of all the sweets, sprinkles, sauces and edible flowers. The brownie mix was a clear winner over the cheesecake.
Week Two saw the team take our juniors to Clip 'n' Climb over 2 days due to high numbers and popularity. It was amazing as some of our young carers had not been there before. Some were terrified of heights, but they overcame their fears and were very proud of themselves in the end. Others were absolute experts at it and kept challenging themselves and others.
For our Seniors, there was a trip to the Player Ready Plymouth - Virtual Reality & Escape Rooms which as always was very much enjoyed by all the Young Carers, especially having the whole place to themselves.
Carers Week
Carers Week takes place from 6 to 12 June 2022, and this year's theme is Making Caring Visible, Valued and Supported.
If you are planning any activities that you would like to be featured in the next newsletter, please email Time4U@plymouth.gov.uk
Welcoming Services
We want Plymouth Young Carers Services to be accessible and welcoming to EVERYONE who is a Young Carer.
If you are an LGBTQ+ Young Carer or care for someone who is LGBTQ+, then you may face additional challenges, such as discrimination.
The Alzheimer's Society has information and an advisory group about caring for an LGBTQ+ person with dementia.
Would you be interested in hearing your views about how we can make our services more accessible? Just let us know by emailing Time4u@plymouth.gov.uk.
The Hope Programme for Carers
This programme is available for carers 18+ and parent carers. Please note that the dates have been postponed to May 2022.
Please see the attached flyers for the South West HOPE (Help Overcoming Problems Effectively) Programme, for promoting to carers.
The HOPE Programme is a free self-management course designed to empower individuals to discover their strengths and find new ways to cope with whatever life throws at them. Supported by trained facilitators, people will be able to meet others in the same situation and learn new skills that will help them on their journey to feeling better and more hopeful. Co-designed with users, healthcare professionals and researchers at Coventry University, nearly 16,000 people across the UK have benefitted from the HOPE Programme to date.
Several South West digital courses will be run over the coming year, including:
- HOPE programme for carers
- HOPE programme for parents of autistic children and children with complex needs
- Supporting carers through grief, loss and change
- HOPE programme for those affected by long COVID
- HOPE programme for people on the waiting list for MSK diagnostics or surgery
Dates and details on how to register are included in the attached documents.
Become a facilitator
HOPE is for people in the South West and is supported by people in the South West. To be a part of this you could be a volunteer HOPE programme facilitator. All facilitators receive training and support from HOPE For The Community CIC. The training is run online and only takes a few hours a week for three weeks, followed by an assessment and then the course facilitation over six weeks. Anyone with lived experience or a healthcare professional background can train as a HOPE facilitator.
Watch this 10-minute film now to find out more.
Becoming a facilitator enables you to support and empower others and can be a useful professional development opportunity. If you are interested in becoming a facilitator, please email england.swipc@nhs.net adding 'HOPE Facilitator' in the subject.
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This page was last updated on 1 December 2022.
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