Caring for Carers in Tameside
Mon, 22 February 2010
Tameside Carers is an organisation originating in March 1995 to give Carers’ the opportunity to break the routine of tasks of caring for family, friends and relatives outside of their responsibilities as a Carer.
The Carers centre and Tameside College recently joined forces to allow 12 Carers to learn some new and exciting cooking skills. Catering tutor, Ray Jones set up a Saturday morning cookery workshop which ran over 6 weeks, giving them the opportunity to cook all types of exciting and reasonably affordable dishes accompanied with recipes, handouts and advice.
On the final session the Carers produced a buffet for their families and friends in the Reflections restaurant which was extremely successful. An awards ceremony followed held in the College Bistro to congratulate the carers on completing the course. NVQ Level 1 students catered for the event with a selection of savoury and dessert canapés and soft drinks.
Catering student, Stephanie Oyekunle also did the Tameside Carers’ cookery course with Ray and she has now decided to undertake the course full-time as she enjoyed it so much. Ray received some very positive feedback from the Carers and they specified a lot of interest in doing a similar course in the future.
Some of the comments from the participants included...“I really enjoyed this course as it gave me the opportunity for some “me time” and to focus on something other than a caring role. If another course comes up, please remember my name!”
“An enjoyable course that was entertainingly delivered by Ray. He has an inspiring personality and he has given me the confidence to try something different.”
“I got a lot of pleasure from doing this course and have learnt skills for life. I also enjoyed meeting other people and having time to myself away from caring.”
Helen Stonehouse, Carers Centre Manager, said “This was a wonderful course for Carers and a good example how Tameside College and Tameside Carers Centre can work together to support Carers to get time out for themselves and have fun at the same time.”