With Carer's Week falling during the month of Ramadhan, Shuria Alam (Carers Support Worker) talks about the impact of fasting and the need for culturally sensitive support for carers. Ramadhan is the ninth month of the Islamic Lunar calendar, and this year will begin around 17th May and end around 16th June 2018. For 29/30 days depending on the moon, Muslims spend the daylight hours in complete fast, abstaining from
For BNF Healthy Eating Week, Touchstone trustee Julie Laxton offers some guidance on how to look after ourselves by choosing what we eat. Healthy eating sounds really boring, but it will help you to keep well and feel better. It can prevent some diseases in the future for example, heart disease and diabetes. What is a well balanced diet? This means eating the right foods for your body to grow,
I didn’t really know what to make of Best Start Peer Support when I first heard about it. It intrigued me, but I wasn’t sure it was my thing. A friend of mine had done it and told me I would enjoy it, so I decided to take myself out of my comfort zone and go. I felt trepidation at going somewhere that offered me ways to cope better, and
The Migrant Access Project (MAP+) helps new arrivals in Leeds to connect with the local community, including finding volunteering opportunities. One of our MAP+ volunteers have shared some of her experience and feedback with us: "I suffered a really bad injury at work and had to reduce my hours, which meant I started getting into debt. My emotional health deteriorated. Meeting the Leeds Neighbourhood approach officers and Nick has helped
Bill Graham from New Wortley Community Association has looked into health inequalities for those in the New Wortley neighbourhood of Leeds. The charts below show some of what he found out. This indicator shows the proportion of households where no people in the household have English as a main language. This information was created from responses to the languages spoken question in the 2011 Census which aims to classify households
Volunteers play an important role in supporting the Liaison and Diversion service, both in the community and in the custody suite. Volunteers provide variety to our service and, in return, experience with us enables them to get closer to their goals. One of our volunteers joined us as his goal was to change career and become a support worker. We are delighted that he has now been recruited to the
It’s like paying tax on having good health… … and paying tax isn’t always comfortable, but neither is having very poor health or being at risk of dying! I’ve been giving blood for a few years now and I’m about to give my eighth donation. As someone who was born in the NHS, had my children in NHS hospitals and who has been in a few scrapes in between I
May 28th 2018 is World Hunger day – a day designed to promote awareness of the simple and tragic fact that 800 Million people in the world do not have enough food to eat. The statistics are shocking. Have a read, digest the numbers involved and share with friends and colleagues..… http://www.foodaidfoundation.org/world-hunger-statistics.html The 28th is of course a bank holiday in the UK. Many of us will be taking time
My friend’s uncle has been displaying a lot of unusual behaviours which are totally out of character. He believes his daughter is his wife who passed away a few years ago. He does not recognise his family members’ true identity at all – he refers to his son as though it is his brother and his other daughter as though it is his sister. It is obviously a very difficult
Dementia is something we all need to be aware of at Touchstone as it can affect all of our lives. Although most of the service users who access Cromwell Mount do not have a Dementia diagnosis we recognise that not everyone displays the symptoms or disclose if they do. To ensure that we are in full support of anyone in this situation we are now well on our way to