• Increased stress and anxiety
• Immediate financial hardship or financial hardship within the near future.
• Concerns around getting prescriptions
• Being unable to visit the cared for person
• Additional child care responsibilities with schools being closed

• Our Telephone Interpreting Service is up and running so that our team can best support all carers regardless of their native tongue just call us on 0191 4900 121
• Our Website is packed with useful information and a Live Chat feature. Please let us know what your experience is - we would love to hear your feedback. 
• Read the latest health advice and information on service disruptions from Gateshead Council here
• Guidance and advice for carers regarding Coronovirus from Carers Trust 

• Carers Week 8-14 June 2020 - Join us for our Virtual Party in the Park! 
• Are you in need of a lifeline? Our Carers Emergency Fund is here for you.
• Ask about our Carer Wellbeing Fund
• Check out our Wellbeing Sessions online website and facebook pages. 
• Volunteers Week 1-7 June 2020
• Artist and Carer Gayle O'Faolain shares her passion for art and her inspirational story with us

Carers Week is an annual campaign that aims to raise awareness of caring, highlight the challenges carers face and recognise the contribution carers make to families & communities throughout the UK.   This year Carers Week takes place 8-14 June and the theme is ‘Making Caring Visible’.

Every year in Gateshead, we organise and deliver events that bring together a range of organisations and support agencies from across the region.  Although we can’t be together in person this year, we can still celebrate virtually and so we will be holding a special online Carers Party in the Park!

Our website will host our online party gallery where you can upload photos, stories, recipes and lots more! You can enter your photos and contributions to our online ‘stalls’, including a craft stall, gardening, pets and our wellbeing tent!  There will be fun prizes awarded for the best entries.

More information will be posted soon on our website www.gatesheadcarers.com and on our Facebook and Twitter pages.  We look forward to helping to Make Caring Visible and to seeing you at our virtual party!

An elderly carer in her eighties who has just lost her husband of over 60 years to the Covid 19 virus said to one of our Carer Wellbeing Facilitators:
"It is strange arranging a funeral and only talking to people on the phone as I have never physically met them or me, but it is nice to hear your voice as I feel I know you even though I haven't met you. Once this is over it would be nice to see you in the flesh and thank you for all the help you have given me over the last few weeks". She said she was so pleased that we were ringing her as she has no family nearby her, and shared a laugh about how she can use Skype now to see her family who live abroad. 

VOLUNTEERS WEEK 1-7 JUNE

I AM TRANSPORTED INTO A PARADISE WHEN I’M PAINTING: ART IS SO THERAPEUTIC

Despite the regular pain she endures through arthritis in her spine, Gayle pursues her love of painting with a passion and her enthusiasm is infectious!  Due to ill health, Gayle retired early aged only 50, she didn’t know then that her love of painting would take her life and career path in a completely new direction.

Having taken some paintings to her son’s workplace, she received much praise and her son encouraged her to look into studying art formally.  Having left school aged 15, Gayle was very apprehensive about studying, never mind taking a GCSE in Art, but she took the plunge gaining a Grade B no less! With a new found confidence, she went on to study at A Level and then at Gateshead College, graduating in 2011. She planned to continue on to a foundation course but this wasn’t meant to be. So she did her own thing instead! Read more...