A Day in the life of our Executive Manager, Donna Nelson

Welcome to our first ever Pasda Blog! We thought it would be a nice idea for you all to hear about what we get up to at Pasda on a day to day basis. Normally, I am in the office or out at meetings and do not have a lot of time to meet with carers. However, I decided this had to change as how else can I really get to hear and understand how our carers feel and what they face daily if I do not get out there and meet them..so I did.

I had the pleasure of taking nine of our carers on a Meditation Retreat. This focussed on guided meditation and various complementary therapy treatments to allow carers to look after themselves better in their caring roles. We went to the beautiful location of Heriot in the Scottish Borders and thankfully the weather was kind to us and we were able to enjoy the beautiful gardens also.

At times we can all get caught up with our caring roles and forget about ourselves and our needs as individuals too. This can be a real struggle for our carers as taking time out from their caring role can cause more stresses than good. However, it is so very important to look after yourself and actually the opposite happens when you do, you feel refreshed, revived and rejuvenated and can care better.

We had such a wonderful day all of us together reflecting on how important it was for us to think about looking after ourselves. We shared a lovely lunch and we also had a good laugh as the group was so kind and lovely to be around, the mini-bus into the Scottish Borders was a real giggle too! I thoroughly enjoyed having this opportunity to chat and get to know some of our carers better and hope to do more in the future. Hope you enjoyed a day in my life at Pasda!

Thanks and kind wishes – Donna