Balancing Caring and Your Wellbeing

Course / Workshop Content

Supporting someone through mental health or life challenges can be rewarding — but it can also be emotionally exhausting without the right support. Balancing Caring and Your Wellbeing is a practical and compassionate course designed for family members, carers, and supporters who want to help others safely and confidently while protecting their own wellbeing. Through practical tools, supportive communication strategies, and self-care techniques, you’ll learn how to recognise early signs of poor mental health, respond more effectively in difficult moments, and build healthier boundaries and resilience for the long term. Who is this for? This course is for family members, supporters, and anyone supporting someone with challenges to their mental health and wants to do this safely, confidently, compassionately and without running the risk of burning out. It will be helpful for anyone new to a caring role, as well as those who have been supporting someone for a long time and need clearer boundaries, skills, and self-care strategies. What will I learn? You will learn more about mental health and how common signs of poor mental health, can have a profound impact on wellbeing. We will look at how to start supportive conversations, validate yours and other’s feelings, respond to crises - including panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. You will receive some practical tools for supporting anxiety and depression alongside strategies for your own self-care and building your resilience as a carer/supporter. Part 1 – We will explore signs of poor mental health and its contributing factors and focus on practical skills for supporting others. Part 2 – We will build on practical support skills while learning some specific strategies for supporting anxiety and low mood and promoting wellbeing more generally. How can I use what I will learn? You can use the course to help you identify early warning signs, have better conversations and choose safer next steps to appropriate support. You will also be able to apply the self-care tools provided - including energy “spoons” planning, starting small with sustainable habit steps, and de-stressing strategies- to protect your wellbeing while you continue caring.