I’m Chris Bezant and I founded the Club4Carers because four of my relations have lived with and died with dementia. I’ve seen how caring for a loved one with dementia can put huge and unexpected emotional and physical stresses on us. My aim is to support you to be the best carer that you can possibly be, by prioritising self care together with care for your loved one.
As carers, we naturally put all our efforts into looking after our loved ones. Yet we often forget that we are their lifeline – their most precious resource – and that we need to look after ourselves too!
As dementia takes control of our loved one, so it also seems to tighten it’s stranglehold on us. Just when we think we’ve got things under control, the rug seems to be pulled from under us, knocking us off balance yet again.
That’s where the Club4Carers can help.
The Club4Carers Has 3 Aims
To show you the way when you feel lost
To hold your hand when you feel alone
To give you a hug when you need comfort
Join the Club4Carers to get Membership support and coaching
My Heart
My Heart is all about helping you to manage your emotions and your mindset. It helps you to manage or overcome feelings of guilt and premature grief that we all feel at some point on our journey.
My Body
Keeping fit is an essential part of being a carer. Here you’ll find some simple quick exercises that you can do in your own home, garden or local park. You’ll also find some great examples of the Alexander Technique in action – a simple method of posture and movement that can help you to move well and with minimal effort.
My Food
My Food provides some quick and easy tips for managing your diet (and that of your loved one) without taking up half of your day. Eating well helps you to feel great and cope with the challenges of the day.
My Friends
So often I hear carers talk of “friends” who just seem to disappear once we become a dementia carer. Sound familiar? It’s so important to nurture and develop your friendships – helping your friends to understand that it’s not as scary as it may seem to them. This section gives you some top tips for doing just that.
My Money
Money is one of the greatest challenges that we all face as carers – as if we didn’t have enough to worry about! This coaching will help you to make friends with money and to find simple and practical ways of generating a small but meaningful residual income.
My Home
Making sure that your home is dementia friendly can save you a whole lot of grief. Who knew that your lovely patterned wallpaper would suddenly cause your loved-one real distress or that the smiling faces in the photo would suddenly be interpreted as people who are laughing at your loved one? If your loved-one is content, it makes your job a whole lot easier.
My Life
My life is all about you, your day and your own memories. It’s so important that as carers, we don’t forget about ourselves. My life helps you to keep journals and records, to treasure those happy moments and to give you the peace of mind that you have a “plan B” for those unexpected eventualities.
My Dreams
It’s always good to have a dream. That feeling that one day you’d really like to visit the seven wonders of the world, study the stars, learn to do knitting or wood carving or whatever. It’s so important to have a vision – a dream – for something special that you’d love to do when your caring days are over.
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Wonder of Wellbeing and Woo Woo
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the London Wellbeing Festival at Olympia. I had two reasons for attending - firstly I thought that I may well come across some great and insightful information that might help and inspire our wonderful club members and...
Preparing for the Alzheimer’s Show
We're really looking forward to launching Club4Carers when we exhibit at the Alzheimer's show at Olympia on 8th-9th June 2018. We'll be joining a great range of other exhibitors and we're looking forward to meeting them all. We'll also be doing some facebook lives...