What is the Positive Care Programme?

A very worthwhile course - I would recommend it to anyone with a long-term condition (and often do!) (A Participant)

The Positive Care Programme is a registered charity (number: 1112401) which provides a free course of complementary therapies especially designed for people with long-standing health problems and people who are carers (who are looking after someone with health problems).

It runs for one morning a week, starting in the autumn, over 30 weeks in total (24 weeks in the first year and 6 weeks in the following year to help continue motivation). The programme can be used along side usual medical care. It is provided by practitioners trained to high professional standards (the Positive Care Team).

The programme is designed as a whole to:

address current physical, emotional and spiritual issues
teach new coping mechanisms
change a person’s view of their illness or situation to a more positive one
empower through learning strategies to cope for the future
provide opportunity to meet others in a similar situation

We do not promise cure. However, through a combination of the complementary therapies, learning strategies to help themselves, a safe environment for supported expression, a caring team of staff, and by having 'me-time', participants can become empowered to take charge of their lives and their physical, psychological and social well-being can improve; thus their quality of life is benefited. This has been demonstrated through our evaluations.

Our project evaluations, over the two years we have run the project, have demonstrated quantitative and qualitative improvements in participant’s quality of life.

‘I have gone from someone severely depressed, suicidal and heavily dependent on alcohol to someone not depressed, free of alcohol and living a healthy life’
(A participant)