Discussion Boards I care for...
support groups for men who are "informal carers"
- By jazz man
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Sat 17 May 2008 19:01
I am both an informal carer and a registered nurse and I help to run a support group in Birmingham for men who are informal carers (called "Carersjoin"). I would be interested to correspond with others who are involved in support networks, forums or groups for male informal carers. Indeed, as historically, men tend not to become involved in carer support groups, forums and networks of any kind and are hard to reach for a number of reasons, does anyone think that there is a need for support groups for men who are informal carers or is this isolationist and discriminates against women? Is there a need for existing support groups for men who are carers to contact each other and network on a national level, thus forming a national forum for male informal carers or is there already an existing national network? Is there anyone interested in doing so?
Let me know Chris.
Replies
- By kerry.
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Re: support groups for men who are "informal carers"
Sat 17 May 2008 20:04Hi Chris,
Im not a bloke (just to clarify!) but my partner is an infomral carer after, like me, he ended up needing to give up his job in the building trade about 6 yrs ago, as I was struggling to cope with two severely disabled small boys (plus two girls who were only young at the time)
Now he really is a mans man and it was such a huge learning curve for him and such a shock in many ways.
But I must say he has coped admirably and has risen to the challenge in a way that a lot of other people wouldnt be able to (male or female)Now he has even had to take over to an extent a lot of the crappy authority stuff, form filling, attending meetings, making phonecalls, and all the rest as im at uni FT. This has again opened his eyes to exactly what i did lol.
you are right- carers groups tend to be attended by mostly female and prob cos most carers are women but to arrange a group for men can only be a good thing-after all anything that is going to support a carer must be a good idea.
I hope there are more groups focused on men! I dont think its sexist at all (and im a women- well last time i checked anyway!)
different gendered carers have different needs the same as diff types of carer have (e.g parent carers/young carers etc)
and we all know men are from mars and women are from venus so male groups may give the blokes a chance to talk about blokey things as well as their caring roles.
also due to the gender thing again- i reckon blokes may feel even more isolated than us girlies on occasion as there are less of them.go for it!
- By jimmytom
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Re: support groups for men who are "informal carers"
Fri 6 Jun 2008 23:38Hi I'm a male carer for my mum. Yes I think there should be support groups for men. My mum needs help sometimes useing the loo. It's very difficult when there are only male OR female toilets in buildings. Mose toilets for disabled people are fine but quite often they are in the male OR female toilets. Very frustrating for me.
That's just one issue. I think it would be great.
also sick of people thinking I can't cope with softer skills required because i am a man.