News

The latest edition of the Southwark Carers News is available to download, please click below to access it.

Southwark Carers News – January / February 2011

Southwark Council are looking to celebrate the service Camberwell Baths has given the community since October 1st 1892.

They want to use stories, photos and memorabilia for the reopening in February 2011. Do you have photos of swimming galas, celebrations, war time use or any other events.

Send them to: Camberwell Memories, Environment and Housing, 3rd Floor (C/D21), Southwark Council, PO Box 64529, London SE1P 5LX or

www.southwark.gov.uk/investinginleisure

Closing date is January 28th 2011.

Have your say on the Government‘s proposals to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) with a new benefit – Personal Independence Payment. The Personal Independence Payment will continue to be a non-means tested, extra costs benefit.

It will help disabled people remove the barriers they face to leading full and independent lives. This consultation asks for views to inform our policy for reforming DLA and introducing a new objective assessment. The consultation applies to England, Wales and Scotland.

See the consultation here

Telephone charity Community Network is giving Carers and their families the opportunity to join a carol service via telephone.

The carol concert is taking place at St Martin’s in the Fields, Trafalgar Square on the 21st December.

Before the concert, Community Network will send a programme to those taking part allowing them to follow the service as if they were actually there. Each member of the telephone congregation is then phoned just prior to the service and linked up to the church.

Furthermore, unlike radio or television broadcasts, the minister taking the service refers directly to those listening on the telephone, reinforcing the feeling they are part of the congregation.

There is no charge to those who wish to take part.

For more information, please call 0845 619 9992.

The Southwark Carers Counselling service is closing for the Christmas period between Friday 17th December 2010 and Tuesday 4th January 2011.

If you require any support during this period you may find one of the following organisations can help:

Carers Direct Helpline: 0808 802 0202

Mental Health Crisis Line: 0800 028 8000

NHS Direct: 0845 4647

Samaritans: 08457 90 90 90

Salvation Army: 020 7367 4500

You, like many people, may be missing out on financial help that is available to you through welfare benefits. This may be of help to you if you are unemployed and looking for work, on a low income, retired, bringing up children, ill, have a disability or care for someone.

This simple Benefits Checker to work out how much you could claim.

Benefits checker

Are you a carer or have you been a carer in the past 12 months?

Can you spare just 10 minutes of your time to help us learn more about the issues that affect you by filling in our carers survey.

Turn2us is part of a charity called Elizabeth Finn Care, which wants to raise awareness of the issues faced by carers in poverty. As winter approaches, the survey aims to gather information how seasonal changes affects carers.

Data from the survey will be used in a confidential manner to highlight the needs of carers to energy companies, policy makers, charitable funds, intermediaries and others working with carers.

Click on this link to take the carers survey

Do you live on the Aylesbury and are over 50?

Worried about your rehousing?

Come along to our event and find out how to maximise your chances of rehousing by bidding online.

Friday 26 November 2010

3.00 pm to 5.00 pm

Pembroke House

80 Tatum Street

SE17 1QR

Appointments are not required – just drop in

For further information call Tracy Copeland on 020 7525 4597

The Mental Health Foundation is conducting a survey of service user and carer views on personal health budgets in mental health. The survey is commissioned by the National Mental Health Development Unit and funded by the NHS Confederation. The survey aims to collect your views on:

• Personal health budgets and how they would be useful to you or to the person you look after
• What help and support you would need to make use of personal health budgets
• Your experiences if you already receive personal budgets or direct payments in relation to your social care needs (or if you manage one for someone you look after)

We hope the survey will help in understanding what support needs there are for people who want to make use of personal health budgets and how to provide this support.

Click here to complete the survey

If you would like to receive the survey questionnaire as an email attachment or would like a paper copy, please contact Jayasree Kalathil at Jayasree@survivor-research.com or call 020 8640 9052

We have been approached by a consultant who is working on a project on pressure ulcers (sores) with York University.

They would like to recruit some patients and carers to give their views about this condition and about possible treatments.

They will be running a meeting in York at the end of November for those that might be interested.

Please contact Sally Crowe (details below) if you are interested in getting involved – or you would like further information.

Sally Crowe
Director Crowe Associates Ltd
Chair James Lind Alliance Monitoring and Implementation Group

15 Chinnor Road
Thame
Oxon
OX9 3LW
tel: 01844 216929

www.crowe-associates.co.uk
www.lindalliance.org