Red Cross Blogs

I blog occasionally, therefore I am a bit lazy

By Jim Griffin
November 19, 2009 at 5:35 pm

Speaking to a colleague this morning I learned the British Red Cross has launched a blog where staff and volunteers recount their adventures.  My interest aroused, I had a quick look and there was something vaguely familiar about the place.  It rang a bell.  A small, distant bell like one a diminutive headmistress might ring in a school for ants far, far away, but a bell nonetheless.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered I was one of the bloggers!

This weekend brings a new therapeutic care course.  Eleven plucky volunteers will learn how to deliver hand and arm and neck and shoulder massage over clothing so we can help people going through times of stress and crisis.  The service was recently reviewed by service users through the Open University so let’s have a quote from someone with Parkinson’s disease: “I definitely know if I’m relaxed I’ve got less pain and stiffness – massage helps that way because it helps you relax a bit too – there’s a definite link between stress and ill-health and pain.”

Yep.  As services go, it’s a good ‘un.  The hope here is to do to therapeutic care what we’ve done to skin camouflage, directing it towards real crisis and vulnerable people, delivering it in a range of placements such as prisons, crisis centres, carers’ groups, palliative care homes, homeless shelters, refugee and asylum seeker peer groups and so on.  That’s the hope.  I would say ‘watch this space’ but that would only build expectation of another blog entry coming your way.

And to bring a close to the pool car pong saga, the current status: mountain fresh.  Quite a victory.

Image: © Lloyd Sturdy

Tags: Therapeutic Care

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 5:35 pm and is filed under Health and social care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.