New health resource for carers : CAREWELL

[Matt Hill]

Please take a look at http://carewelluk.org

I know a few of the carers on here have been involved in helping test the site and develop the content. Carers UK has worked with BUPA and MEND to create Carewell - the idea is all about having the energy to care.

Healthly lifestyle advice is all very well, but for most carers they don't have the time or money to join a gym or buy a juicer etc! But we know that carers suffer poor health. They're too busy looking after someone else they don't look after themselves.

Carewell is about practical advice on eating, exercise, stress and sleep that we hope is non-preachy and acknowledges the difficulties carers face in staying healthy.

There is a forum there too, not intended to replace this one but is a place where carers who want to make a change to their live can discuss the health issue and get support. Plus if you sign up you get a free MP3 download to aid sleep and relaxation

Please take a look and let me know what you think.

All the best

Matt

[Booksey]

I will look later when a raverous 11year old isn't moaning about being starved to death

[Melly1]

Thanks for link, will check out when have a spare mo.

melly1

[Lazydaisy]

I left my point of view on Facebook.

[ladybird]

Ho-hum.

I am trying to be fair Matt and not negative but whose idea was it for Carer's UK to get involved with this project-was there any mention made about it on the forum?

To be truthful (and I did look at it with an open mind) all it is doing is replicating information that is available elsewhere and is often available from local carers groups.

You see we know all the tricks in the book already regarding sleep. if you live with sleep deprivation every day, you don't need to be advised on ways that you can get extra sleep..if there's an opportunity it will obviously be grabbed! One glaringly obvious thing that I have found was that in regard to making up my sleep during the day..well, my caree had other ideas. Even if she wasn't around, the outside world has no consideration of my position and the phone will still ring, paperwork still needs to be done, other family members need to be looked after..you get the idea.

What has annoyed me a lot is the quizzes re nutrition, exercise etc. Taken straight from the Bupa website with absolutely no connection to anything to do with caring at all, I find it insulting to be frank. Have you read it yourself, do you think this has anything to do with carers health and wellbeing? I think not and it may make them feel a whole load worse, giving information that is practically unobtainable for many. We know how to eat well..having the time or money to do it is another matter.

Thing is, there is always going to be ill feeling towards anything that suggests how we manage our time, sleep, nutrition and stress better, even if it does in a non preachy-way. The things that we consider the most important are not to be found in CAREWELL and probably not to be found on Carers UK either.

We want a day without stress (well, more but you know what I mean!), services that work with us, not against us, more money so we are not debating whether we pay the rent or eat or have heating. We want the relatives who don't give a damn to do just that and share the load with us.
What we want we know we probably can't get and we are frustrated, angry and hurt that we are at the bottom of the pile.

I think we all know that Carers UK can't change that. But I think we assume that you know that the way we live isn't always conducive to a healthy lifestyle (always exceptions of course) but we have no choice. If there was a choice we would have taken it.

Sorry, I have taken liberties and used "we" in many of my comments. I'm sure that there may other carers who disagree with what I have written, I was just using general terminology.

I do wish I could have given more positive feedback but I honestly question the reasoning behind this website this is not something that I hear carers say that they need.

[flossie]

about taking liberties and using "we", you spoke for me there too.Sorry Matt, I agree with everything ladybird said .Checked out the site and there's nothing that tescos mags don't do already.Ok for 17 year olds who 've maybe skipped various bits of school, but rather trite for me.

[Lazydaisy]

me too Ladybird,only you have voiced it much bettern than I did.

[ladybird]

Just a couple of things that I'm wondering about.

I looked at the Facebook page and it says that this was put together with some help from Carer's UK members..how? Was it advertised, were people sent something asking if they wanted to be involved?

Also, I have tried to find info re MEND on the net, I had never heard of them. I initally found an Americanised website obviously based in the US and thought "no, that can't be it".

I tried MEND UK and found this.http://www.patient.co.uk/support/MEND-( ... tion.Do-it!).htm

I am sincerely hoping that this isn't the same MEND that is involved with the CAREWELL project because if it is, it has really annoyed me. Please tell me it's not.

All very well in it's own field and for those who are interested but downright patronising for everyone else and with absolutely no connection to any Carers issues as far as I can see.

[Lazydaisy]

if so, then their financial partners are;
Big Lottery Fund
Britvic
Bupa
Cartoon Network
Department of Health (West Midlands)
Department of Work and Pensions
Ethicon (a Johnson and Johnson company
Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust
Legal & General
Morgan Stanley International Foundation
National Skills Academy
National Sports Foundation
Nutricia (a Danone company)
Sainsbury’
Sport England
Welsh Assembly

Funding Partners are the partners of MEND rather than Carewell.Going through Facebook, then yes,it does appear to be the same MEND.

[Eun]

I thought the Carewell website was a bit pointless and patronising. Did Carers UK get some dosh off the "partners" for it because I don't see much relevance to put upon carers in it? What carers from Carers Uk helped set it up then? I don't remember anyone asking us carers if this is what we wanted. Why don't Carers UK get a bit more involved in helping us get lifted out of poverty, or get listened to instead of wasting time and money on this crap?

Eun