Conversations about mental health and the world we live in: Caring for our carers

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Time: 6.30pm - 8.00pm
Venue: Clattern Lecture Theatre, Penrhyn Road campus, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE
Price: free

Please scroll down to view all of the events in this series. 

The School of Law, Social and Behavioural Sciences is proud to launch an exciting series of public lectures, workshops and panel discussions entitled Conversations about Mental Health and the World We Live In.

Together with a number of internationally renowned external speakers, national charity leaders, and experts by experience, mental health experts at Kingston University will engage in a series of discussions and workshops on the topic of mental ill health and wellness. 

The topics will range from understanding the causes and proposing solutions to the mental health crisis of our time, examining well-being of young people and carers, whether our modern-life work is detrimental to our well-being, how religious communities are engaging with the topic of mental ill health and the impact of the Brexit crisis on psychological well-being.

This Conversation is entitled Caring for our carers and will be chaired by Dr Tushna Vandrevala from the Department of Psychology.

Her guests will include: 

• Professor Nan Greenwood, Professor of Health and Social Care Research, Joint Faculty, Kingston University and St George's, University of London
• Daniel Phelps, University of Winchester and Careum School of Health, Zurich
• David Still, Kingston Carers' Network

They will discuss contemporary issues relating to unpaid (family carers) from a life course perspective. 

One in 8 adults (around 6.5 million people) are carers in the UK and every day another 6,000 people take on a caring responsibility – that equals over 2 million people each year and numbers are growing. Over 70% of family carers responding to Carers UK's State of Caring 2018 Survey said they had suffered mental ill health, including anxiety and depression as a result of caring. Many carers also highlight the positive aspects of caring. Increasingly, many academics, communities, charities and government departments have recognised a need to develop constructive responses to the mental health challenges relating to family carers to enable them to support their loves ones. 

In this session, we will offer insights from our research work on unpaid carers from the life course perspective with a particular focus on their mental health and well-being. Daniel Phelps will address the needs of young carers and young adults (including students) as carers. Tushna Vandrevala will draw upon research on parenting a child with special needs and Nan Greenwood will address the primary issues for older adult carers, including loneliness and concerns about their declining health and planning for their loved one's future. Finally, David Still from Kingston Carers' Network (KCN) will discuss the initiatives and activities by which charities (such as KCN) support carers of all ages and the legislation in place that underpins this support. 

Drawing on the perspectives offered by the panel members, we will invite the audience to reflect how we help protect carers mental health and well-being. We will try to identify what makes for constructive, useful responses to the challenges faced by carers, what gets in the way of this, and what resources are needed to make communities places of safety and support for family carers.

Join us for this fascinating event, take part in discussing a topic relevant to us all, and see below for the rest of the events in this series. Audience participation will be encouraged!

• Thursday 17th October:  Explaining psychological distress and the mental health crisis of our times
• Wednesday 22nd January: Where do I belong? Identity caught between EU and Brexit
• Thursday 27th February: Religious communities and mental health - developing constructive, supportive responses 
• Thursday 19th March: Young people and mental health
• Thursday 23rd April: Right to disconnect from work - new horizons to improve our work-life balance 
• Thursday 21st May: What can be done to ameliorate the mental health crisis? 

For further information about this event:

Contact: Dr Tushna Vandrevala
Email: T.Vandrevala@kingston.ac.uk