A grant from Co-op is helping Carers First support bereaved and former carers in the East Coast of Lincolnshire. The grant is funding activities for people in a caring role who have been bereaved or where the person they care for has gone into residential care. The support from Carers First doesn’t stop when a carer is bereaved or is no longer a carer, and with the funding for these activities the charity continue to support them to rebuild their lives.
The loss of a caring role, whether from bereavement or another reason, can be a difficult transition, stir up complicated feelings and risk people becoming isolated. Giving people the opportunity to share these feelings is a significant part of helping people through it. The activities help people to meet others in the same situation as themselves, to encourage them to remain connected to people.
So far, 75 people have benefitted from the project to date, through welfare phone calls, doorstep deliveries of gifts, groups meals and for those that have not been able to attend arranged activities, cinema tickets. Carers First has a lunch for former carers at Woodhall Spa in January and are planning a shopping and sight seeing trip to York in the Spring.
Carers First has received some wonderful feedback from the project. One recently bereaved carer was able to spend quality time with her grandchildren after the charity bought Christmas Cake Kits for a group of carers. They were all missing their grandad after losing him and she felt it would be a special time to make the cake together, to remember grandad.
The events are also encouraging peer support. At an afternoon tea event at the Blitz Café, one carer started a conversation about how to cope with the anniversaries, birthdays and Christmas and she got support from the other carers who were going to go through the same worries and feelings. They felt they “had to get on with it and were going to make their Christmas dinner the best they could.”
The activities have encouraged several people to join the Carers First Louth Carers Wellbeing Group.
Carer Support Adviser, Georgina Claridge, who is leading on the project says:
“I find people want to talk. Some are very lonely, it is humbling to see how people in their late 80s who have been married for over 60 years are coping, creating a new routine, one is baking each week as he likes cake. I would like to thank the Co-op. Your support is helping people at a difficult time not to lose touch with others and start to rebuild their lives.”
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