We are immensely proud of our amazing colleague Hazel Brown, Hazel Brown, Head of Communities at Local Solutions, who has received an MBE from HRH The Prince of Wales for services to carers.
Hazel has played a pivotal role at Local Solutions over the last 24 years, developing a range of services that aim to improve the quality of life for carers in Liverpool. The Liverpool Carers Centre provides a safe space for all carers and their families, and a range of activities to support health and wellbeing, share experiences and feel connected.
In 2017 Hazel developed a pioneering idea called Mytime; the scheme provides respite opportunities for carers to enable them to take a much-needed break from their demanding caring roles. These opportunities include overnight stays at hotels, meals, afternoon teas and trips to theatres and cinemas. For many Carers, this will be the first time that they have been able to take a break with confidence and experience these wonderful leisure opportunities and a chance of relaxation.
Hazel's dedication and caring nature has improved the lives of many families and carers over the years - we are all very proud
We are delighted to announce that Local Solutions is to become a Real Living Wage employer with immediate effect. This increases the minimum rate of pay across the organisation to £9.90, in line with recommendation from The Real Living Wage Foundation.
Christmas can be a hard time for lots of people and even harder for those who for whatever reason cant spend it with their families. The young people placed with our supported lodgings service all have their own story for how they ended up here and ultimately away from their families.
Our householders, who like everyone else have a million things to do at Christmas, always go over and above to ensure our young people have the best family Christmas possible.
Our carers centre team have been working so hard planning this special festive delivery they’ll probably be able to fill in for Santa himself in the event Rudolf catches covid.
To kick off the celebrations, the carers centre held a virtual Christmas Carol Concert on Zoom. We made sure to send song sheets to everyone attending so carers at home could join in. The music was provided by Holistic Harmonies a Liveprool based community interest group who specialise in using creative arts to promote positive wellbeing.
Covid 19 Booster Vaccine – unpaid carers continue to be recognised in cohort 6 to receive the booster. The NHS will let those carers that have had both Covid vaccinations know when it's your turn to have a booster dose by letter, you may be contacted and asked to book online or at a local NHS service such as a GP surgery.
You don’t need to get in touch before this.
Every year it is a great honour to celebrate the commitment of our staff with the Long Service Awards. The annual event celebrated 17 colleagues who have a combined 285 years service.
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, our Sports Horizons service took the young people they support on a residential trip. The trip took 12 young people to Borwick Hall situated alongside the Lancaster Canal & home to a wide range of activities, it was the perfect venue to host the first residential trip in such a long time.
Throughout the pandemic we have been so proud of our amazing carers at Local Solutions. When everyone else had been told to stay at home, they continued to go out every day to look after the elderly and most vulnerable in our communities. Although the level of funding of the care system is being debated at the moment, Local Solutions is responding to the results of staff consultation and the Board of Trustees has endorsed the Chief Executive’s proposal of increasing our care workers’ pay with immediate effect.
We were pleased to welcome the Chief Constable of Merseyside, Serena Kennedy, to visit some of our services at Local Solutions on Monday 6th September.
We were pleased to welcome the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Councillor Mary Rasmussen, to visit some of our services on Monday 19th August.
Since August 2019 Chris and Hazel have been working on a way to make sure the importance of the health and wellbeing off carers is being recognized, not only by GP’s but by the people surrounding them also. They wanted to achieve this through spreading the word through doctors’ surgeries and GP practices. 6.5 million people in the UK are carers. In Liverpool this figure is just over 50,000.
We've partnered with LJMU to evaluate the Bullybusters anti-bullying intervention scheme. The aim is to see what is working well, what needs improving and to consider changes moving forward. The evaluation will help to develop our Bullybusters further & provide us with useful insights to help us better support people who experience bullying.
Our Carers were absolutely delighted to celebrate with Ellen on her 100th birthday.
A message from Local Solutions’ Board of Trustees:
"We are delighted to announce that Tom Harrison has accepted our offer to take on the permanent position as Chief Executive of the charity...."
Local Solutions has been awarded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) Gold Medal Award for Health & Safety performance. The Gold Medal Award is given to organisations that have achieved 5-9 Gold Awards. This is Local Solutions 6th year receiving the Gold Award.
Hazel Brown, Head of Communities at Local Solutions, has been awarded an MBE for services to Carers in the recent Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Hi my name is Chrissie and I have been attending the carers centre since 2018. I was caring for my Mum who had dementia and bowel cancer and had pretty much hit rock bottom when I was referred to the Carers Centre. I am not exaggerating when I say it saved my sanity......
During this year’s carers week, the team at Liverpool Carers Centre will be delivering a ‘Hug in a Mug’ tea break box to 1,000 unpaid carers across the city. These boxes will contain a mug, tea, coffee, and other goodies within. The team have now organised and packed the boxes and will deliver “hugs in mugs” to 200 carers each day throughout the week.
Nick who is always smiling and is polite to everybody, is a most valued volunteer at Shopmobility and we would be lost without his help. The team at Shopmobility appreciate everything he does
Thanks to funding from WCVA, our family hostel, Plas Bellin, has been able to develop a much improved IT suite, with the addition of three new computers.
Local Solutions’ interim Chief Executive, Tom Harrison welcomes the appointment of Hazel Snell as the organisation’s new Chair. Hazel joined the Board of Trustees in 2017.
We are delighted to announce that Tom Harrison has recently been appointed as interim Chief Executive of Local Solutions.
The local NHS and Liverpool City Council are appealing to unpaid carers whose role currently isn’t recorded, to make themselves known so that they can have the Covid-19 vaccine.
To support those most in need, The COVID Winter Grant Scheme has been made available to Councils by the DWP to support those most in need with the cost of food, energy and water bills and other associated costs during the winter period, particularly considering the COVID-19 outbreak.
