Category Archives: Carers

Motor Neurone Disease: ‘No words to describe how bad it is’

Lack of awareness. That was the problem when the ambulance was unable to take Pauline Scott to hospital.

Coling Hardy representing MNDA in Berwick. (Motor Neurone disease awareness)

Pauline needed medical help after a fall. She had Motor Neurone Disease. Her brother, Colin Hardy, recalls that when the ambulance arrived at her Scremerston home it was not sufficiently equipped to cope with a patient imprisoned in her own body.

Instead, Pauline’s family had to transport her in their own specially-adapted car, with paramedics sitting in the back. The ambulance followed behind as Pauline was taken to Wansbeck hospital in Ashington.

‘An absolutely electric energy’ at the Young Carers Festival

Posted 27 June 2014,

The 15th annual festival for young carers begins today

This weekend’s Young Carers Festival is the biggest national festival for young carers. Some 1600 young carers are expected to be at the event, which we organise in partnership with the YMCA Fairthorne Group.

The festival’s goal is to give young carers a chance to have fun, meet fellow young carers, share their experiences with friends and policymakers, and enjoy a break from their caring responsibilities. This is the fourteenth annual Young Carers Festival.

Accessibility should be part of everyday arts practice

The English National Ballet’s My First Coppélia makes use of symbol resources, which supports the inclusion of people with a communication difficulties. Photograph: ENB

For many children and young people, particularly those with learning difficulties, attending a theatre performance can be a confusing and stressful experience. Sara Ryan from the University of Warwick has described the experience of many parents taking their children into such public places as being “contingent, unsatisfactory and incomplete”.