Join our upcoming #PallANZ Tweetchat on the 28 April 2016

Moderated by @AnnaLCollins

‘Carers’ are those of us in our community providing informal, unpaid care to someone living with serious illness, disability, mental illness or frailty. Carers play an indispensable role in providing palliative care in our community.

If this describes you – perhaps you don’t think of yourself as a ‘carer’, but more simply as a loving husband, neighbour, sibling, mother, friend or daughter – someone who gives a hand to a person needing care. Maybe you help with practical things – such as taking someone to their medical appointments or doing the shopping. Or maybe you’re a carer involved on a daily basis who has given up work to provide care, providing round the clock nursing support and helping with tasks like feeding, bathing, dressing, and even decision-making.

Coming from a perspective of interviewing many carers about their experiences of providing support to a person living with serious illness, what strikes me on a personal note is how carers share the commonality of this uniquely intimate experience like no other. One that is sometimes too complex for words but laden with moments of all shades of grey and purple and yellow and black and white – joy, grief, laughter, guilt, relentlessness, anger, struggle, isolation, fatigue, connection, fragility, pride, responsibility, sadness, fun, desperation, hope and loyalty.

Many of us aren’t aware there are carers of all ages undertaking these roles in our community – over 2.8 million in 2015 Australia alone. That equates to 12% of our population who form the lynchpin of our health system – collectively providing an estimated 1.9 billion hours of unpaid vital support to a person requiring care every year!

So how can palliative care, the health system, our government and each of us within our community help to support carers?

This month, @palliverse and @PCACEO invite you to join us and our special guests for a #PALLANZ tweetchat to discuss “Caring for the Carers” on 28th April 2016. This online tweetchat will be an opportunity to share your experiences, ask your questions and talk about the key issues for carers of people living with serious illness – be that dementia, cancer, MND, heart failure, or any other serious chronic condition.

What? Topics for discussion:

• T1 What do carers do? What does it mean to be a carer? Do you have any experiences to share?
• T2 What’s the best or most enjoyable thing about being a carer? What’s the hardest thing?
• T3 What kind of supports do carers need? How can we help to ‘care for the carers’?
• T4 What supports are available for carers in our community? Please share any resources or strategies you have found useful.

Who?

Everyone with an interest in these issues is welcome, including:

• Carers of someone living with serious illness, disability, mental illness or frailty.
• People who receive support from a carer and their families.
• Clinicians, researchers.
• Health service managers, administrators, policymakers.
• Other interested members of the community.

When? Thursday, 28th April 2016

• 5:00pm AWST Perth
• 6:30pm ACST Adelaide, Darwin
• 7:00pm AEST Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Brisbane
• 9:00pm NZST Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch

How?

The @Palliverse moderator for this tweet-chat will be Anna Collins (@AnnaLCollins). If you would like to ask your questions, or share your ideas and experiences with our #PALLANZ community, but are unable to join us on 28 April – please contact @AnnaLcollins via twitter or email us (Palliverse@gmail.com) ahead of the tweetchat.

New to twitter or never participated in a #PALLANZ tweetchat before? For help with twitter, check out our tutorial here. Once you have a twitter account, just type the hashtag #PALLANZ into the search bar at the time of the tweetchat and click ‘live’ to watch the chat unfold. You can join in by adding the hashtag #PALLANZ to your tweets.

Look forward to welcoming you to #PALLANZ soon.