Friday, March 29, 2024

Torbay’s unpaid carers ‘take a break’

It is thought that Torbay is home to thousands of unpaid carers.

Torbay’s unpaid carers, has recently celebrated National Carers Week 2018 with some well deserved fun and relaxation.

Carers Week celebrates the essential and often unsung role that unpaid carers full fill.

An unpaid carer is often either a family member or a friend who support people with a disability, a long-term condition, mental health, drug or alcohol issue.

Building Carer Friendly Communities

This years national carers week was organised by Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust’s Carers Services and supported by local organisations.

The theme of the week was on Building Carer Friendly Communities and helping carers stay healthy and connected.

It also recognised that they are individuals with needs of their own.

Head of Carers and Volunteers Lead at Torbay & South Devon NHS, Katy Heard, said:

The role our unpaid Carers play in providing expert care forsome of the most vulnerable people in the community, cannot be valued highly enough. For these people – many of whom are young people, still attending school, or are older people with health needs of their own – caring is not a job which starts at 9am and ends at 5pm; it is a commitment which means they can be ‘on-call’ 24hours a day, seven days a week

A host of events

Torbay's unpaid carers could sail a yacht

The week was filled with a whole host of events, designed for a wide age range, which took place across Torbay.

Events ranged from learning to belly dance to sailing a yacht around the Bay.

From treasure hunting at Torre Abbey to  a return trip on the Dartmouth Steam Railway and Riverboat, plus many other activities.

All aimed at promoting the wellbeing of carers and recognising their vital role.

Carers Services Coordinator at Torbay & South Devon NHS, Natalie Townsend said:

It was wonderful to see so many carers relaxing and enjoying a day out, it is so important that we recognise our unpaid carers and provide them with opportunities to take time-out from the support they provide.

A popular event this year was the Dartmouth steam train and it was great to spend time with so many carers, who thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to have an

afternoon out to relax and enjoy the views across the river Dart and the spectacular Torbay coastline.

Carers Week really does provide us with the perfect opportunity to celebrate theoften unsung contribution unpaid carers make within our local communities

Boost News Desk
Boost News Deskhttps://www.roberthaylor.co.uk
Robert Haylor has 14 years of web development experience, starting out as a web developer whilst still in his university dorm room at Birmingham City University. With a background and a strong interest in website design & development he is skilled in a variety of programming languages including PHP, MySQL, CSS3 and HTML5. As Managing Director of Boost Digital Media, he regularly jumps on to client projects on a daily basis as well as ensuring the company strategy is being implemented and is delivering results.