Carers zoom meeting – 9th Feb 2021
We had 30 members this evening. Lisa welcomed everyone and also Andrew Wrensch who is delivering the weekly training and Mike Rich – CEO of Barnet Carers Centre. Lisa informed everyone that the first half of the session from 7pm to 7.30pm this would be an opportunity for a general chat before Andrew started the Training at 7.30pm. The session then started promptly and Lisa had 3 questions which were emailed by members previously to this session that wanted to discuss.
The first topic was about looking forward and planning a break for carers and their loved ones. The pandemic has caused a lot of disruption and stress to people’s lives and having something to look forward to was important. Lisa suggested an organisation called Revitalise https://revitalise.org.uk/ as they have previously attended to do a talk before the pandemic at one of the dementia clubs. Lisa showed a slide show of one of the centres called Sandpipers –
https://revitalise.turtl.co/story/lockdown-breaks-at-sandpipers/
– showing briefly what Revitalise can provide at this centre. Although Revitalise have more centres, at this present moment during the pandemic they are not operating their usual service as their other 2 centres are working in partnership with the NHS welcoming patients from local hospitals so that they can make room for Covid positive patients. Lisa informed members that the links would be in the in the zoom chat section.
At this point Mike Rich who is CEO of Barnet Carers Centre mentioned that he is happy to offer Grants for carers for Travel and breaks for a maximum of £300. Members were delighted to hear this and thanked Mike.
The second topic which was emailed to Lisa to discuss was – ‘Early Detection, Prevention and Treatment of dementia’ Lisa mentioned the previous visit to the carers group session from Dr Paresh Malhotra a consultant neurologist and lecturer at Imperial College who did discuss these briefly and also clinical trials. Lisa also mentioned that she wanted to invite Dr David Jefferys – a Professor of Medicine and Senior Vice President in Eisai. Lisa also mentioned that these topics would be explained in more details through the weekly training delivered by Andrew Wrensch.
The third topic was about Vaccinations and the side effects. For this Lisa decided to play a YouTube introducing Dr John Campbell talking about vaccinations and side effects. Everyone thought this was very informative. Lisa then informed members how to find the YouTube and also provided the link in the zoom chat section Dr. John Campbell – YouTube
Lisa then introduced Andrew at 7.30pm to start the Training and Andrew introduced the topic – ‘Understanding Distressed Behaviour’. Andrew explained that if there were more issues raised after today’s training that needed expanding, he would happily continue in providing a part 2 to next week’s training on this topic. Andrew presented the topic and showed different slides to explain. After Andrew finished his presentation he opened up the session to questions.
Everyone first thanked and congratulated Andrew and were so overwhelmed by the training he provided as it touched a lot of the carers in how they were feeling personally in their own situations. As anticipated, further questions and concerns were raised in the discussion and Dr Angela one of our Trustees was very helpful responding to medical concerns and questions leading Andrew to confirm that next week he will be introducing a Part 2 training discussing – How do we deal with distress, Sun Downing, How we could promote healthier sleeping cycles and also he will be researching on the Bladder issues.
A couple of members asked if the slides could be made available and also if the Training could be recorded. Andrew informed members that he would email Lisa the slides after every Training and is happy for the Training to be recorded but we must also be mindful of members privacy.
Lisa said that she would email everyone the Training slides and also refer them to the website for further details.