Hearts and Minds has created a film based on the workshops it has with unpaid carers
A charity has created a new film which aims to give unpaid carers a voice.
Hearts and Minds launched its short film What Do I Need?: Carers Voices this week.
This is the culmination of the charity’s PLAY COPE CARE Workshop Project for carers at home, which was developed with carers organisations across Scotland, with funding from BUPA UK Foundation.
Speakers at the event yesterday (Thursday 3 June) were Kaye Ramage, Glasgow East End Community Carers, Claire Baker-Mosley, head of community at BUPA UK Foundation and Rachel Colles, project lead for Hearts and Minds.
The charity shared its new short film created with carers from Glasgow East End Community Carers, who talked about their own personal experiences and thoughts of being a carer at home for a person living with dementia or chronic illness. Hearts and Minds also shared the outcomes from its Play Cope Care project and discussed programmes for people living with dementia and their carers.
Carers have had to face unimaginable adversity over the last year. Isolation, loneliness, lack of support and vital services as well as feelings of feeling forgotten by society have been acute during the pandemic. Through conversations with carers groups, Hearts and Minds realised it wanted to make something to make carers feel seen and heard, for their feelings to be validated, for their resilience and playfulness in the face of extreme adversity to be celebrated, and for their huge contribution to society to be recognised.
The film is based on Hearts and Minds Play Cope Care workshops for unpaid carers and features the voices of the carers. It will be available to carers organisations to share and provide six minutes of respite to carers who might be feeling alone, at a loss or invisible and act as a reminder they are connected to a huge network of remarkable people who know exactly what they are going through.
The launch of this film is timely with Carers Week running from 7 – 13 June.
