Author Archives: wendy
Day care services for elderly ‘hit by cuts’
The number of older people using day care centres in England has fallen by nearly a quarter in three years, charity Age UK has said.
Age UK found the number using services such as lunch clubs had fallen from 88,498 in 2009-10 to 68,160 in 2011-12, and blamed councils’ funding pressures.
It warned that thousands of older people faced “the prospect of living out their last years in loneliness”.
The government said councils received sufficient funding to protect services.
The rise of the silver surfer: UK grandparents put tech on wishlist
A new survey shows that grandparents don’t want knitwear this holiday season, they want technology gifts like tablets that help them get online and keep in touch with their families.
Traditional gifts, like sweaters, socks and even books, will fail to raise a smile with the older generation this holiday season.
According to a survey of over 2000 adults conducted by YouGov for online security firm Kaspersky Lab, only 3 percent of the over-55 crowd would like socks this year and 5 percent a knit pullover, while a staggering 41 percent are holding out for a smartphone, tablet or laptop.
This is in stark contrast to the younger, traditionally tech-savvy generation who would be happy with knitwear 14 percent of UK 18-to-24-year-olds said they would like a sweater and 21 percent said they’d be happy to receive socks.
Young carers: The added responsibility that Christmas brings
By Peter Coulter BBC News, Belfast
Christmas for young carers would be a very different experience to that of other children.
Young carers get together in east Belfast for a flower arranging class.Tidying the house, putting up decorations, cooking the turkey and washing up all those dishes, just some of the jobs they’ve had to do over the last few days.
These chores are normally seen as the parent’s job in many houses but for 8000 young carers across Northern Ireland, Christmas brings extra responsibility to support their families.
We met a group of young carers in east Belfast who are attending a flower arranging class, part of an initiative organised by local charity Crossroads.
The charity is running the workshops to not only give the young carers a bit of respite time but also teach them some vital skills.
In Northern Ireland approximately 8.5% of children act as a carer for another member of their family who may be ill or disabled, in many cases this can be a terminal or degenerative illness.
‘Difficult experience’
The Crossroads Young Carers project aims to provide them with support, social activities, practical help and respite.
Saffron and Jayashree Saffron Wallace and Jayashree Sugumaran enjoy coming to the young carers club.
