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A Stroll Through The New Town
LifeCare Monthly History Talks
Thursday 11 February at 2pm
New CEO for LifeCare Edinburgh
Older people’s care charity enters its 80th year with new Chief Executive
LifeCare Edinburgh has announced the appointment of Damian McGowan as its new Chief Executive.
The renowned Stockbridge-based charity offers registered care and outreach support for older people in need living across the North of the city. Established in 1941, the organisation supports over 800 elderly clients every year supporting a variety of issues including dementia, loneliness, mobility issues, food poverty, mental health problems and carer support.
Damian McGowan, a trained social worker, brings with him over 30 years’ experience in social work, social care and adult care services. He is joining the charity following 20 years leading Gowrie Care, part of Hillcrest Group, and most recently as Managing Director at Corcare in Cornwall.
Announcing the appointment Jock Miller, Chair of the Board of Trustees said: “Damian brings a wealth experience and leadership talents which will immediately benefit everyone within the charity and will have a hugely positive impact on all of our important care services.
“We are thrilled that in the year in which we will celebrate our 80-year anniversary, and in which we will continue to navigate the challenges of COVID-19, Damian is joining us to drive forward and continue our well-known success offering first-class care for older people in our communities.”
Damian McGowan, CEO of LifeCare Edinburgh, said: “LifeCare delivers incredible high-quality care and support to hundreds of local older people within our communities every year.
“The care which my new colleagues deliver daily enables older people to remain independent in their own homes for as long as possible; they support both their physical and mental wellbeing. This is always vital, but never more so than through this shocking pandemic which has disproportionately affected older people who are otherwise left chronically isolated and vulnerable.
“I am extremely proud and honoured to be joining LifeCare at this crucial time. Collectively the board and all the staff have worked tirelessly to continue to safely deliver the key support our hundreds of elderly clients continue to need to survive this crisis.
“They have quickly adapted, redesigned, and introduced new key services to make sure that all essential needs have been met. Once we are able, I very much look forward to getting out into the community to safely meet with the people we support and to working with our board, staff and all of our dedicated volunteers.”
LifeCare Edinburgh is a registered charity and relies on the support of its funders. Key relationships include Barclays, Lothian Buses, Tesco Bank Edinburgh and all the many local people who take part in community fundraising events.
For more information visit https://www.lifecare-edinburgh.org.uk/
LifeCare secures £100,000 to provide ‘meals on wheels’ service
LifeCare Edinburgh, the older people’s support charity, is today announcing it has secured £100,000 from Barclay’s 100×100 UK COVID-19 Community Relief Programme.
This funding will enable the charity to deliver its important new ‘meals on wheels’ service set up to support some of the most vulnerable and isolated local older people through the crisis.
This will be particularly important over the challenging winter months ahead when older vulnerable people will require more support than ever to maintain physical and mental health and to remain connected to others through this unprecedented time.
The Stockbridge-based charity has almost 80 years of experience supporting older people living across the city.
The range of support services offered by the care organisation allows older residents to comfortably stay in their own home for longer. For example, the charity runs essential help at home services, registered outreach services and hosts three day centres for those with dementia and the frail elderly living throughout the city.
However, the crisis and the subsequent restrictions, has radically affected the usual range of in-person care services proudly offered by the charity. LifeCare has had to quickly evaluate, adapt and launch new programmes of support, such as this new meals on wheels service, to ensure that those in need continue to receive the high-quality support older people urgently need.
Kirstine Fergusson, Interim CEO of LifeCare, said: “We are so grateful to Barclays for this phenomenal level of support. The £100,000 award will enable our dedicated teams to deliver 100 hot meals a day to some of the most vulnerable and isolated older people living across our local communities right now.
“We all know that the colder, winter months ahead look a little harder for us all this year, but this is particularly true for the people we continue to support every day.
“Our older people are missing usual interactions such as coming to our day centres and participating in our varied support programmes. They are no longer easily able to get out of the house, have a change of scene and perhaps sit in our café to enjoy the company of others.
“Many of our clients live alone, are fearful or unable to leave their homes by themselves and they can become very isolated, so we are delighted that because of this new partnership with Barclays we are now able to visit those most in need regularly to check in, to say hello and to provide them with a hot and nutritious meal to keep them going through the colder and darker days. This is truly life-changing support.”
Scott Stewart, Head of Barclays Scotland, said: “This crisis has had an unprecedented impact across Scotland and we know this is an incredibly challenging time for many communities.
“By reaching those most in need of support LifeCare is playing a vital role in this crisis. At Barclays we are doing everything we can for our customers, clients and colleagues to help them through this pandemic. We hope that the donations we are making to charities across Scotland, including LifeCare, will allow them to amplify their vital work and support more people as the crisis develops.”
This new meals on wheels service will be managed by the team working within LifeCare’s renowned community café on Cheyne Street by their Help at Home service. The small team will deliver 14,000 freshly prepared hot meals across the coming months.
The charity will be targeting local older people most affected by the restrictions. If you, or someone you know, would like to benefit from the meals on wheels service please call 0131 343 0940 to discuss.
For more information visit https://www.lifecare-edinburgh.org.uk/
Barratt Homes helps Edinburgh communities with charity donations
LifeCare and Tiphereth have each received a £1,000 donation as part of Barratt Homes East Scotland’s regular Community Fund giveaway.
Elderly care charity, LifeCare, will be using the cash boost from the five-star housebuilder to upskill its frontline workers to better deal with the changes to their working environment caused by COVID-19. For Tiphereth, the donation will help towards the refurbishment of one of its facilities, allowing them to welcome more people back to the organisation’s day service.
LifeCare specialises in dementia care, home care and incare for older people, allowing them to live with dignity. By helping older people keep connected to their communities, and to the things they love and enjoy, Life Care aims to guard the elderly against social isolation and the trap of defining people by dementia, poor mobility or advanced years.
Tiphereth is a unique community in Edinburgh where people with learning difficulties, staff and volunteers work and grow together. Through undertaking work for local community groups as well as their own cookery, art and gardening projects members increase their self-confidence while developing lifelong skills.
Alison Condie, managing director at Barratt East Scotland, said: “LifeCare and Tiphereth carry out incredible work supporting the vulnerable and people with learning difficulties.
“We’re pleased to be able to help them and hope that our donation will allow them continue to provide these crucial and important services through what are difficult times for us all.”
Speaking of the donation Vicki Bradley, Fundraising Manager at LifeCare added: “We are delighted that Barratt Homes has chosen to donate £1,000 to LifeCare.
“The people who use LifeCare services are amongst the most vulnerable in society and many are still shielding, so it is extremely important that our workers are knowledgeable in how to keep their clients and themselves safe. COVID-19 has not only changed the way we work but has added extra costs to all that we do, so we are very grateful to Barratt Homes for their generosity to help us continue to support those who rely on our services.”
Gordon Hudson, Fundraiser Manager at the Tiphereth said: “We would like to extend a huge thank you to Barratt Homes from everyone at Tiphereth. While our residential homes have been able to operate throughout lockdown, getting our day service back to 75% capacity has used up 100% of our staff.
“The donation will go towards bringing an extra building up to normal office standard, allowing us to utilise our locations differently and establish safer smaller groups. This, in turn, will help us welcome more people back, offering respite to parents.”
Now in its second year, the Barratt Homes Community Fund has pledged to donate £1,000 each month to a charity or organisation in the East of Scotland. Charities are nominated by and voted for by employees of Barratt Homes and the focus for the fund continues to be on organisations that improve the quality of life for those living in the area.
The Barratt Homes Community Fund will be continuing into 2021.
Interested charities can enquire about donation opportunities at charity.eastscotland@barratthomes.co.uk
For more information on Barratt Homes, visit the website.
‘Essential’ Edinburgh groups share Lottery cash
Community groups in Edinburgh are sharing in £3.3 million of National Lottery funding to help them rise to the challenges of COVID-19 and beyond.
Thanks to National Lottery players, 141 projects across the country including 13 in Edinburgh are set to benefit.
Lifecare Edinburgh Limited receives £79,990 to continue its Vintage Vibes service across the city for the next two years.
Andrew Ainsworth, Service Co-ordinator, Vintage Vibes, said: “Vintage Vibes tackles isolation and loneliness in over 60s (VIPs) across Edinburgh through one to one friendships with local volunteers, based on shared interests.
“Edinburgh is the loneliest city in the UK for older people – something we know has only been exacerbated through the current pandemic. This grant will allow us to continue to support our current VIPs and many more over the next couple of years as we move through and beyond COVID-19.
“We know what a difference their friendships make to our VIPs – one VIP, Norma told us that for her ‘it’s essential to have something like Vintage Vibes’. Thank you to The National Lottery Community Fund and to all National Lottery players for making it possible for us to continue to make a difference to our VIPs.”
Thistle Health and Wellbeing receives £120,000 to deliver a programme which will support people who have been severely impacted by long term physical and mental health conditions. The support will also help clients who are living with the longer term effects of COVIVD-19, including Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome.
The project will help many more people like Rafit Khan, aged 41, from Edinburgh.
Rafit said: ““I met different people which has made me feel good about myself, more confident to approach people. I think groups like this are very beneficial for people with mental or physical problems or with chronic illness. It gives them skills/tools to manage it throughout their life.”
Welcoming the funding, Mark Hoolahan, CEO, Thistle Health and Wellbeing, said: “We are delighted to receive this funding from The National Lottery Community Fund. The grant will enable Thistle to support more people living with long term health conditions to live a life free of isolation and loneliness.
“Thistle supports people to feel more in control, ensuring that a health crisis does not become a life crisis, and so this funding will have a significant positive impact on the wellbeing of people in Edinburgh and the Lothians.”
Announcing the funding to 141 projects across Scotland, The National Lottery Community Fund’s Scotland Chair, Kate Still, said: “These projects in Edinburgh are rising to the challenges of COVID-19 and supporting local people to stay connected with each other in these unprecedented times.
National Lottery players raise £30 million every week for good causes in the UK. The National Lottery Community Fund in Scotland is currently focusing its funding on those projects that supporting organisations and communities to respond to the challenge of COVID-19.
To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk
Lottery joy for Edinburgh projects
Additional support will be made available to Scots recovering from cancer and those who have survived sexual abuse thanks to £3.3 million of National Lottery funding announced today.
The Beatson Cancer Charity and Edinburgh Rape Crisis are amongst 141 Scottish groups receiving awards from The National Lottery Community Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, the funding will help to create a network of support around those who need it most during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond.
Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre will be able to extend the specialist support it offers thanks to an award of £350,000.
Its three-year project, ‘Trauma and Counselling Support for Survivors of Sexual Violence,’ will support adult survivors of sexual violence across Edinburgh, East Lothian and Midlothian. In particular, the funding will enable the Centre to further develop its ‘Still I Am’ (SIA) project for survivors from Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities aged 16 and over, who have had any form of unwanted sexual experience.
Over the next three years, The Centre will be able to reach out to many more people like Queen*. Welcoming the funding, she said: “I am very happy and excited that the SIA project got further funding because it has changed my life.
“I do not know what I would have done without this service and without counselling. I feel that SIA has changed not only mine but also my children’s lives because I can be there for them too. I am very grateful, and I would like to thank The National Lottery Community Fund for their decision because that means the SIA service will help more women like me in the future. Thank you so much.”
Caroline Burrell, Centre Director, Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, said: “We are absolutely delighted to receive this award from the National Lottery Community Fund. It recognises not only the vital work we have done over many years supporting survivors of sexual violence, but also the very pressing need to continue to provide our life-changing services.
“Sexual violence, which includes rape, sexual assault and childhood sexual abuse, devastates lives, and without effective support its impacts can be lifelong.
“Over the next three years our trauma-informed work will support hundreds of survivors to build a life beyond sexual violence and abuse. In particular this funding will enable us to further develop our SIA project for survivors of sexual violence from Black and minority ethnic (BME) communities aged 16 and over, who have had any form of unwanted sexual experience.”
This group will deliver specialist trauma-informed support to survivors of sexual violence in Edinburgh, East Lothian and Midlothian. Survivors of rape, sexual assault and childhood sexual abuse will receive emotional support, group support and advocacy support helping them to move on from trauma, and to build their confidence and resilience.
Two more local ‘winners’ in this round of grants are LifeCare and carers organisation VOCAL, who receive £80,000 and £41,000 respectively.
LifeCare, the older people’s support organisation based in Stockbridge, will use their funding to continue its project matching people over 60 (known as the VIPs) with volunteers, aged from 17-92, to facilitate one to one friendships between the VIPs, volunteers and the larger community they create when coming together as part of the wider Vintage Vibes VIP/Volunteer community.
VOCAL, based on Leith Walk, will use the funding to continue development of their short breaks service for carers which provides respite to people with caring responsibilities. VOCAL will also review their short breaks offer in light of the COVID-19 impact, extend the range of short breaks opportunities for carers and develop a social enterprise business proposal for carer holiday accommodation.
Edinburgh-based organisations Corstorphine Dynamo FC, ELREC, Friends of Saughton Park, Governors of Dean Orphanage and Cauvin’s Trust, Grassmarket Community Project, Leith Civic Trust, Pregnancy & Parents Centre, Prestonfield & District Neighbourhood Workers Project, Thistle Health and Wellbeing and YWCA Scotland received support ranging from £5000 right up to Thistle’s £120,000.
Elsewhere in Scotland, breast cancer survivor Susan McGoldrick, 56, welcomed an award of £269,800 to Beatson Cancer Charity for a three-year programme of therapeutic support.
This programme will help hundreds of people across the West of Scotland who are recovering from cancer to better deal with anxiety and any fears of recurrence they may have following completion of or changes to their treatment.
Susan, from Lenzie, completed the pilot programme last month following a cancer diagnosis in 2019. She said: “This National Lottery funding will make a huge difference to many people like me. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I joined and with the programme only being six weeks long and virtual due to COVID-19 restrictions, I wasn’t sure what I would achieve.
“But I have to say it has been a revelation and I feel like a brand, new woman. I have learned so much and feel transformed and it has even inspired me to make recent radical changes in my life. I would like to encourage many more patients to attend if they can.”
The six-week programme of therapeutic groupwork will help people to develop their own coping strategies and will work with them as they develop their own personal plans to engage more with day to day life, their families and the wider community.
Martin Cawley, CEO of Beatson Cancer Charity, said: “We are delighted at the award of this very important grant. The medical treatment process for cancer is difficult enough for people to cope with, but when you add the psychological impact on top, it is especially challenging.
“Even when people have successfully been through their treatment programmes there is always an underlying worry about cancer recurrence. This project supports people to develop their own coping skills, this in turn strengthens their resilience and recovery even further.
“This grant will help greatly as part of the cancer journey and allow many more patients to become involved over next three years. Everyone at Beatson Cancer Charity is absolutely thrilled. Thank you to The National Lottery players without whom this grant would not be possible.”
Announcing today’s funding totalling £3,332,722, The National Lottery Community Fund’s Scotland Chair, Kate Still, said: “Projects across the country continue to make an amazing contribution the nation-wide response combatting the impact of COVID-19 on communities across Scotland.
“Today’s funding will help thousands more people like Susan and Queen, whose inspiring testimonies highlight how important it is to have a tailored package of support when you are going through the most challenging of circumstances.
“The comfort of knowing someone who understands your journey is at the end of the phone or forms part of a group network of support cannot be under-estimated. This is vital work which we are delighted to support, and all made possible thanks to National Lottery players.”
The National Lottery Community Fund is currently focusing its National Lottery funding in Scotland on those projects which are supporting organisations and communities to respond to the challenge of COVID-19.
To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk
*Name has been changed to ensure anonymity
LifeCare online quiz on Tuesday
LifeCare invites you to join in for the third of its online quizzes on Tuesday 13th October at 15.00.
Enjoy 60 minutes of fun, laughter and topics including the Movies, Nature and lots more.
The quiz will take place on Zoom and for details on how to join in, please contact Aleks, the Community Engagement Facilitator: alekspacula@lifecare-edinburgh.org.uk
LifeCare September history talk
LifeCare, the older person’s charity based in Stockbridge is pleased to announce September’s instalment of its very popular monthly History Talks which cover local history and are delivered by local people and organisations.
This month’s talk will be on Dean Village and will be given by Keith Walker. It will take place on Tuesday 29 September from 3pm – 4pm on Zoom.
To book a place, please contact the Community Engagement Facilitator, Aleks Pacula at alekspacula@lifecare-edinburgh.org.uk
LifeCare talk: History of Cramond Island
LifeCare, the older person’s charity based in Stockbridge is pleased to announce August’s installment of its very popular monthly History Talks which cover local history and are delivered by local people and organisations.
The talk will be on Cramond Island and will be given by Ian Rodger of Cramond Heritage.
It will take place on Tuesday 25th August from 3pm – 4pm on Zoom.
To book a place, please contact the Community Engagement Facilitator, Aleks Pacula alekspacula@lifecare-edinburgh.org.uk