We had a lovely joint lunch outing last Friday with 10 carers attending from both groups. It was a georgeous day and everyone  seemed to enjoy it. It's great to make the effort to get out in the country and enjoy a proper change of scenery, go somewhere we haven't been before. As we have learnt in one of our health and wellbeing sessions recently, it's an essential part of self-care. 

So please keep up the self-pampering during our summer break thats coming up shortly. Look after yourself, become your own best mate!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10766077

It is lovely to see that a volunteer at our Carer Pamper Day felt inspired to support carers as a therapeutic massage therapist.

This is a great opportunity for HB carers to put some learning from the carer health and wellbeing course about self-care and self-pampering into reality by booking in for a relaxing, rejuvenating massage.

Find out more on the Healing Hands for Carers website.

We completed our four week course with the last session on Friday on high blood pressure and high cholesterol and learnt about what it means and what treatment options there are. The Health and Wellbeing sessions have been received well by participants, and carers who couldn't attend have requested the handouts of the sessions.

The handouts of all four Health and Wellbeing sessions are attached under recent articleswith the title Carer Health and Wellbeing Course 2011.

On Friday we had our third session of the Carer Health and Wellbeing course. The topic was on Burn out and depression, the symptoms that go with it, self help recommendations, and the suport that is available in our community. 

Just being able to talk about the experience and giving the feelings the carers shared a name seemed very helpfull. Whether we are family carers or not it is important to be aware whether the mood, feelings and energy variations we experience are in the realm of the normal or whether they indicate the onset of a more serious disturbance in our mental and physical health.

We all agreed that admitting that we do suffer from ongoing feelings of fatigue, hopelessness, lack of motivation, despair about our situation and asking for help is a HEALTHY SIGN OF SELF-CARE, an attitude that we value ourselves and our health.

When asked what they need most, carers said it was a sense of SPACE AND PEACE to balance the reality of being constantly in demand as if they were dealing with a never ending emergency.

Please see the attached documents for information about support available in your community.

Give us a call if you feel you need additional information regarding resources and assistance.

We had our second session of the Carer Wellbeing course in Taradale today. The topic was self-care and self-pampering.

Learning to say NO was one of the important messages. No as in NOT OPEN or NOT ON OFFER. Loving yourself and becoming your own best friend was another emphasis today.

We talked about what self-care meant to the individuals and that it doesn't mean selfishness. We looked at possibilities of putting short but regular time slots committed to self-care and pampering into every day. One carer said she recently decided not to be part of a physiotherapy session her husband had to attend. She usually is the one who does the talking for him but that day she chose to stay in the waiting room and read her book knowing that her husband was capable to talk for himself for 15 minutes.

MEETING/SESSION TIMES AND TOPICS FOR NOVEMBER:

The Hastings group: Friday the 4th November 1.30 – 3pm, Headway House, 605 Willowpark Road South, Hastings
Carer wellbeing course session 3:
How to deal with feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, fatigue and depression.Community support and self-help information.

The Taradale group: Friday the 18th November 10 am -12pm, All Saints Church, Taradale
Carer wellbeing course session 4:
Managing common age related ailments e.g. high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, naturally.
Speaker to be confirmed.

All family carers are welcome to join these educational sessions, you don't have to be a 'regular' of the groups.

We had a successful first session of our four session Carer Health & Wellbeing program last Friday held at our new venue for the Hastings carer group. The topic was on Stress and Stress Management. Great to see members of both the Taradale and Hastings group attending. I hope everyone benefitted from learning something new about how to manage the stress in their life. The most important message of the session for me was, that stress is not what happens to us but how we respond to what life throws at us.

Participants received a stress assessment questionairre and handouts about activities in the Hawke's Bay area that might help them reduce their stress levels.

Please click on the title to find the documents in the file attachments below.

Check out our latest newsletter with updates on what we have been up to at C4C, results of our surveys, and a photo story about this year's fantastic Carer Pamper Day.

Our October meeting in Hastings is on Friday 7th October from 1.30 - 3 pm at our new venue the Headway House, 605 Willowpark Road South, Hastings.

This meeting will be the first session in our carer wellbeing program:

Stress management, information about different forms of stress and how we can identify and eliminate.minimise stress and learn better reponses to it.

Our October meeting in Taradale is on Friday 28th October from 10 am - noon.

This meeting will be the second session of our carer wellbeing program:

The importance of self-care and self-pampering for better health.

All family carers are welcome to attend. No enrolment or cost involved. Come along if you are a family carer and interested in the topic.

Please watch out for information about the November sessions on carer wellbeing here on our website or on our facebook page.