A CHARITY is staging a series of activities across Keighley to celebrate carers.

The initiative, by Carers' Resource, also aims to raise awareness of the support available.

Several events will take place during Carers Week, between June 11 and 18.

Information displays will be situated throughout the week at Keighley Library and the Airedale Shopping Centre and on specific days at other venues.

Carers' Resource chief executive, Chris Whiley, said: "Carers Week is a national awareness initiative which helps the public to understand more about caring and helps to highlight the daily challenges carers face.

"It also celebrates the contribution carers make to their families and communities.

"One of the biggest challenges we face is that a lot of carers don't actually identify with the word 'carer'.

"People who look after a friend or relative with a long-term condition, or who is elderly or disabled, don't realise they are a 'carer' because they see it as part and parcel of their relationship.

"We work very closely with GP surgeries and medical centres to help make sure carers are identified – and identified early, at point of diagnosis not crisis – and this is a key way to help ensure people don't fall through the net.

"For carers to be supported, for them to be able to care with confidence and to stay healthy to do so, there needs to be a much wider recognition and respect for the role they are doing and a greater understanding of the challenges they face on a daily basis.

"They save the country billions of pounds and their role is often relentless, overwhelming and extremely isolating."

East Morton woman Verlie McCann discovered Carers' Resource when her late mother was diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer's in 2013.

"The support I have enjoyed has been through Carers' Resource activities," she said.

Verlie, 67, said she had been a carer for her husband Tom – who was diagnosed with depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – for nearly three decades, but was unaware she was classed as that.

"Taking care of Tom was all part of 'for better or worse'," she said.

"No one had ever talked to me about available support or discussed what Tom's diagnosis would mean on a long-term basis."

Verlie is now a member of the Carers' Resource art group, at the charity's Skipton office.

"It's been a lifeline for me – a highlight of my week," she added.

"The group is very friendly, welcoming and encouraging to all who join.

"One of our members says she may come into the group feeling down but goes away happy and smiling."

Other events during Carers Week include:

June 12 – Staff and information stand at Cross Hills Surgery, 9.30am to noon

June 13 – Ukulele band at Time for Me, The Hub, Stone Grove, Steeton, 10am to noon. For carers, former carers and over-50s.

June 15 – Staff and information stand at Sainsbury's, Keighley, 10.30am to 2pm, and at Airedale Hospital, 11am to 3pm.