Heywood, Middleton & Rochdale Circle launch Give & Take Care service

Circle launched a new service, Give & Take Care

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Heywood, Middleton & Rochdale Circle (HMR Circle) launched a new service called Give & Take Care on Friday (6 October) at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum, birth-place of the Co-operative movement.

The service has been launched in partnership with Give & Take Care CIC, based at Brunel University in London.

The Give & Take Care Scheme is the brain child of Professor Heinz Wolff, the renowned academic and former TV presenter of The Great British Egg Race, and his colleague, Doctor Gabriella Spinelli.

In attendance were  the Mayor and Mayoress Ian and Christine Duckworth, Leader of the Council, Richard Farnell, councillors, representatives of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) and HMR Circle members.

Mark Wynn, Director of Heywood, Middleton & Rochdale Circle, opened proceedings with a short history of HMR Circle and how they got off the ground, thanks to the support of RBH.

The group has received international recognition for its work on reducing social isolation amongst older people, and has also received acclaim for both social and business innovation.

Professor Heinz Wolff gave his vision of how "we should all try and help support each other", and spoke about how, with an increasingly ageing population, more needs to be done to make provision for people in later life.

Dr. Gabriella Spinelli gave an in-depth overview of how Give and Take Care works.

She explained: “Give and Take Care (G&TC) is a ‘time-banking’ scheme with the ambition to become embedded in society long-term. G&TC is made up of CareGivers and CareReceivers, both of which are called Partners.

“G&TC delivers volunteer befriending support through organisations like HMR Circle, encouraging regular one-to-one support visits which can become long-term, meaningful friendships. We believe this will improve the quality of care for many older adults by increasing connections with others and providing additional support with day-to-day activities.

“The scheme is also available to people in existing family care arrangements, enabling family carers to bank some caring time for their own futures.”

Dr Spinelli continued: “Central to the scheme is the Care Savings Account, a personal account where CareGivers record the hours of care they give to elderly people. In the future, when CareGivers reach the age of 60, they can become CareReceivers and ‘spend’ their credits to gain the support they need.

“In this way, G&TC gives something back to those who volunteer for the elderly in their local communities, and the Savings Account helps CareGivers to plan for their own future support needs.”

The event was brought to a close by the Mayor Duckworth, who thanked everyone for attending and urged everyone to get behind the scheme and help make the Rochdale Borough a great place to grow old.

Heywood, Middleton & Rochdale Circle works at connecting older people, reducing social isolation, and having a good time.