Workshops

Suffolk Family Carers provide a range of FREE online and face to face workshops. These are available to all of our registered family carers, aged eighteen or over (to register please complete our registration form).

To make it easier for you to access our workshops have created our ‘Essentials Collection‘ . This is an expanding series of short self-paced introduction videos covering the key topics from our most popular workshops. These can be accessed at any time.

If you wish be one of the first to hear about our upcoming you can subscribe to our Workshops Newsletter. You can also contact us if you feel there may be barriers or challenges that make it difficult for you to attend one of our face to face workshops, or have suggestions for additional workshop topics that will help you in your caring role

Caring with Confidence

Delivered as the three standalone workshops below.

Caring and Coping

Do you feel stressed in your caring role? You are not alone…

However dedicated we are to our caring role, being a family carer can sometimes be stressful. This workshop will explore how stress affects us and some tips for coping with it. Find out how eating chocolate (or your favourite edible treat) can help cope with stress!

Carers Rights and Carers Safety

Are you confused about where you stand with regard to your legal rights as an unpaid carer? Would you like to know more about your entitlements? Do you worry about your safety and wellbeing and that of the person you care for?

This information session aims to raise awareness of Carers Rights, give an overview of your entitlements. The session also aims to raise awareness of personal safety and wellbeing issues which may affect the way you look after yourself and the person you care for.

We offer both a self paced video version and a face to face version of this workshop.

NB: Neither of these versions provide financial or welfare rights advice to individuals.

Caring and Communicating

Are you in a caring role and would like to develop your communication techniques?

Have you ever tried to ask a doctor/other professional a question and ended up frustrated that you didn’t get an answer? Or tried to talk to the person you care for or others about a difficult subject and felt you could have handled it better? This workshop will help you tackle these issues and it will also help you develop techniques for planning how you ask for what you need and increase your chances of getting it.

We offer both a self paced video version and a face to face version of this workshop.

Wellbeing for Me

Are you in a caring role and experiencing difficulties with your emotional and physical wellbeing

This workshop will enable you to look at how your caring role can impact your own emotional and physical wellbeing, how to improve your wellbeing and look after yourself.

Subjects include:

What is wellbeing?
The Five Ways to Wellbeing
Life approaches that support your wellbeing
Overcoming challenges
Planning to achieve your wellbeing goals

Caring and Resilience

Would you like to improve your ‘bounce-ability’ in your caring role?

Juggling the complex challenges that accompany a family caring role can make it hard to recover your own wellbeing after a relapse or set-back, especially if you are a family carer supporting someone with mental health or exhibiting challenging behaviour. People with strong resilience can pick themselves up after a set-back, brush themselves down and move forward positively. They ‘bounce-back’. If you’d like to learn how you can improve your ‘bounce-ability’ in your caring role – this workshop is for you.

Caring and Boundaries

Would you like to explore the nature of healthy boundaries within your caring relationship?

Caring relationships can become very complicated, especially when the person being cared-for is experiencing mental health or exhibiting challenging behaviour. It can be hard to keep track of where responsibilities begin and end, lives and identities can become entangled and any sense of personal identity, space and resources can be lost. If you’d like to explore ways to find some clarity about your own parameters, this workshop may be of help.

Understanding your own trauma

We are not currently running our own Caring & Trauma workshop but would like to offer you FREE access to this online learning from the NHS

Understanding your own trauma is for people who have experienced trauma at any point in their lives, perhaps through loss, bereavement, an accident, or illness. It is also for those who want to support friends or family through trauma. This course is not a replacement for therapy or counselling. You may find it difficult at times, and perhaps you would find it helpful to talk to someone, so we have included some signposts for further support, should you need it.

Use the code WOLSEY to access courses for free

Care 2 Chat

Are you in a caring role and would like to connect with other family carers?

These informal sessions provide a safe space to share experiences together and gain support. There will be different themes such as sharing interests and tips for wellbeing.

Help Getting Online

Whether it’s making appointments, shopping, staying connected, managing your health and wellbeing, accessing online services, or simply browsing the Internet the increasingly digital world can feel overwhelming for many family carers and the people they care for.

These face to face sessions are designed to assist family carers and other individuals get the most from their digital device.

Moving & Handling

The most common injuries for family carers are across the back, which may limit your movement and ability to look after the person you care for so it is essential to understand safe moving and handling practice.

Live on-line workshops

During each live group session (but taking place online) our Moving & Handling professionals will provide more information on moving and handling, along with some basic tips, an introduction to general moving and handling techniques and details of how to care for your back.

Group face to face workshops

In these interactive group sessions our Moving & Handling professionals will demonstrate techniques to help you move the person you support to and from a chair, into and out of bed, into and out of a wheelchair, how to walk with someone safely and how to support someone to get up after a fall.

Caring for Children, Young People and Adults on the Autism Spectrum

Caring for Children and Young People on the Autism Spectrum – Wellbeing for Family Carers

Are you a parent/carer of a child/young person on the Autism Spectrum?

This workshop runs within school hours and is for parents/carers of children and young people (up to the age of 18) on the Autism spectrum. It reflects on the way in which you care, exploring ways to support neuro-diverse children, whilst maintaining your own wellbeing.

Unfortunately, it is currently not available to parents/carers in Waveney.

Subjects include:

Condition traits
Sensory issues
Communication
Limit setting
Anxiety & how to manage if for yourself as a family carer & for the person you care for
Self-care

Caring for Adults on the Autism Spectrum – Wellbeing for Family Carers

Are you a carer of an adult on the Autism spectrum?

This workshop is for carers of adults (aged 18 and over) on the Autism spectrum. It reflects on the way in which you care, exploring ways to support neuro-diverse adults, whilst maintaining your own wellbeing.

Unfortunately, it is currently not available to parents/carers in Waveney.

Subjects include:

Condition traits
Sensory issues
Communication
Anxiety and how to manage it for yourself as a family carer and for the person you care for
Assertiveness
Self care
Increasing wellbeing

The Recovery College

Our friends at the Recovery College provide a range of courses in a safe, supportive, and compassionate approach to mental health recovery.

sessions cover a range of topics, promoting:

Self-awareness and acceptance
Understanding recovery principles
Learning new skills and strategies
Leading a meaningful life, with or without symptoms

Courses are grouped to guide students through their recovery:- Begin – Understand yourself, Build – Develop a self-help toolkit,
Understand – Explore challenges & Grow – Create a future plan

From time to time we change the availability of our workshops based on our access to funding. If you are unable to find availability for the workshop you would like to attend, or feel it is not listed please take a look at the workshops we are not currently running in the first instance or contact us.

Please note:
1. Our workshops are predominantly for adults caring for adults. If attending in your role as carer for a child or young person under 18, please be aware that you should either have sole parental responsibility for the child/young person or the approval of the person/organisation with or sharing parental responsibility (e.g. local authority/social services/co-parent) to attend. This applies to Foster Carers, Special Guardians and Connected Carers. We are happy to discuss the aims, objectives and content of our workshops to ensure their suitability.
2. Workshop availability is dependent on funding.

We provide regular updates on our upcoming workshops. If you would like to be included in these please subscribe.

As we offer a number of specialist workshops covering Who’s In Charge, Autism/ADHD, Substance Misuse, Mental Health and Wellbeing you can also choose to receive information on these.

Your e-mail address is only used to send you information about the workshops from Suffolk Family Carers. You can always manage your preferences using the link included in each email to stop receiving unwanted information