‘Time bank’ launched in Clitheroe to help full-time carers
9:06am Tuesday 9th July 2013 in News By Jon Robinson, Reporter
A RIBBLE Valley charity has launched a ‘time bank’ scheme aimed at lending a helping hand to carers.
Cross Roads Care, based in Clitheroe, hopes the project will attract more volunteers to do odd jobs for people who look after someone else full-time.
In return for doing tasks such as walk-ing carers’ dogs, or doing their gard-ening or ironing, their hours would be ‘banked’ and another volunteer, or a carer, would do something for them in return.
Ann Roberts, a former nurse who is a trustee at the charity, in Salthill Road, said: “I gave up my job to look after my mum when she had a stroke. Cross Roads Care came to help me out and allowed my mum to stay at home until she was 90.
Bishop wants research into welfare reform-food bank use ‘link’
Research is needed into whether government welfare reforms have caused more people to become dependent on food banks, the Bishop of Truro says.
Bishop Thornton said foodbanks were dealing with “a desperate need for food”The Right Reverend Tim Thornton said it was vital to understand if there was any sort of link.
A study by Church Action Poverty and Oxfam said more than 500,000 people in the UK may rely on food banks because of benefit cuts and unemployment.
The government said its reforms aimed to improve the lives of poor families.
Bishop Thornton said: “We need to ask for the facts as to why people are in this situation, and why there is such a desperate need for food.
“It wouldn’t take much work to point out how these things are growing.”
In response to the recent Church Action Poverty and Oxfam study, the government said its welfare reforms would “improve the lives of some of the poorest families in our communities”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-23216487
