As an unpaid carer you could be eligible for a FREE 3 month membership. This would entitle you to use all of Actif Sport and Leisure facilities. Don’t miss our – limited membership available!
The membership includes individual use of:
Carers Week is an annual campaign to raise awareness of caring, highlight the challenges unpaid carers face, and recognise the contribution they make to families and communities throughout the UK. It also helps people who don’t think of themselves as having caring responsibilities to identify as carers and access much-needed support. Carers Week is led by Carers UK with the support of a number of other charities.
This year we celebrated Carers Week 10th – 16th June and helped to ‘Put Carers on the Map’ in Carmarthenshire with an informative and relaxing day at Llanelli Library.
A warm welcome awaited carers who had the opportunity to chat to staff from 16 organisations and find out more about support available in their caring role. There was time for a friendly chat, cake and a cuppa as well as being introduced to two wonderful Carmarthenshire Therapy Dogs, Sheba and Marshall.
Carers also enjoyed a Creative Arts Workshop, Virtual Reality Demonstrations as well as having a de-stressing and soothing mini Thai Massage Therapy session from Services | Nuumam Thai Massage | Llanelli
A big thank you to all carers who attended, organisations who supported the event and Carmarthenshire County Council who funded the event.
A ‘Working Together to Support Carers conference’ was held recently in Carmarthenshire. The Head of Adult Social Care said Supporting Carers is a priority in Carmarthenshire and the local authority wants to ensure a co production approach is used to inform this work.
The audience was made up from practitioners and carers. This included representatives from statutory and third sector services. The agenda included a series of presentations in the morning including:
In the afternoon, guests were able to join tables for discussions on different topics. This included:
Discussions were captured and will be collated to inform strategies in Carmarthenshire including the developing prevention strategy. This was a wonderful example of co-production and the day enabled qualitative information to be gathered, so that the voices of carers could be included in planning for support provision.
One theme that kept emerging throughout the day was the importance of relationship-based practice and how this can support a better understanding of those with caring responsibilities and their needs. It was evident that there is complexity within families with multiple carers and in some cases, this was not always being recognized and supported. It was suggested that there needs to be more of a proactive approach in identifying those with caring responsibilities who may benefit from assessment.
There was a great deal of discussion about the need for short breaks to be bespoke and in line with what matters for both the carer and the person with care and support needs. There were also suggestions for direct payments to be used flexibly and creatively to ensure a person-centred approach.
Feedback from carers was positive and there are plans to hold a similar event next year
If you would like to find out more about this topic, please have a look at the Welsh Government annual report for 2023 on the delivery plan for unpaid carers:
Unpaid carers delivery plan annual report 2023,
