In this podcast, ALLIANCE Carer Voices Project Lead Tommy Whitelaw joins Music Detective, Andy Lowndes from Playlist for Life, one of the many ALLIANCE members. The wide-ranging conversation covered how you can find the soundtrack to your life and what it can do for people living with dementia and their carers – always but especially at this time.

There are approximately 759,000 unpaid adult carers in Scotland – many of whom were isolated far before the lockdown and for whom the COVID-19 pandemic has only exasperated challenges and uncertainty.

In this ALLIANCE Live, ALLIANCE Director Irene Oldfather is joined by Scotland’s National Clinical Director, Professor Jason Leitch to discuss the impact of the pandemic on unpaid carers, support available and what the current situation may mean in informing long-term priorities.

Rachel Ainley, Health Services Programme Manager from Crohn's & Colitis UK shares with listeners the way the organisation is supporting people they work with through the COVID-19 pandemic and sheds some light on the guidance they are providing people who are living with IBD.

In this ALLIANCE Live we are joined by Anne Callaghan from the Campaign to End Loneliness exploring the impact of loneliness, how COVID-19 has exacerbated it, how society can respond to support people affected by it and the importance of social connectedness and relationships.

Anne Callaghan is the Campaign Manager in Scotland for the Campaign to End Loneliness, a UK-wide organisation focused on research, policy and influencing on the issue of loneliness. She sits on the Scottish Government National Implementation group for the delivery of the Social Isolation and Loneliness strategy and is a trustee for Impact Funding Partners and Generations Working

In this podcast, Carer Voices Project Lead Tommy Whitelaw joins Lynne Innes, National Director for Education at NHS NES discuss the role of general practice nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The wide-ranging conversation covered the delivery of person-centred care, new ways of working in light of COVID-19, the nuanced opportunities and challenges that technology brings and what the current situation might mean for future practice.

In this Wellbeing Wednesday podcast, Stephanie Quigley, Lead Complementary Therapist at Cancer Support Scotland provides listeners with an opportunity to focus on their breathing while walking and eating to produce calmness which is especially important in the current situation

In this podcast, Carer Voices Project Lead Tommy Whitelaw is joined by Hannah Martin, Research and Engagement Worker at Carers Trust Scotland in conversation on student carers’ experience of education. The conversation sheds a light on the ongoing research currently being undertaken by Carers Trust Scotland to better understand the experiences and challenges of student carers in higher education and how carers can continue to participate in this engagement while social distancing. The findings of this research will inform their recommendations to improve the educational experience for carers. 

Lucy Mulvagh, the ALLIANCE's Director of Policy and Communications, talks to Anuj Kapilashrami, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Global Health at the Centre for Global Public Health, Queen Mary University of London about intersectionality and the reasons for taking an intersectional approach to COVID-19.

Intersectionality is the interconnected nature of different social categorizations like  ethnicity, socio-economic status, age, and gender, applied to an individual or group to create an overlapping and interdependent system of discrimination or disadvantage.

COVID-19 and responses being taken to it are not having the same impact on everyone, and some individuals and societal groups are disproportionately affected. Anuj talks about why intersectionality is important, rather than focusing on social categorizations in isolation of each other. She makes several recommendations for concrete action to help support an intersectional approach to COVID-19.

On Monday 18th May from 3pm, the ALLIANCE interviewed Calum Irving, Head of the Third Sector Unit at Scottish Government.

This important ALLIANCE Live session will consider the response from the third sector to the coronavirus pandemic as well as give consideration to both the short term and longer term needs that the third sector is facing and provide an opportunity to outline Scottish Government’s response and support to the third sector.

Calum Irving was appointed as Head of the Third Sector Unit for Scottish Government in September 2019. He is responsible for a team which invests in and develops policy to support social enterprise, volunteering, charities and a strengthened role for the third sector in contributing to the National Performance Framework outcomes. Prior to Scottish Government Calum has worked in a range of third sector organisations and most recently as Director of See Me, Scotland’s mental health anti-stigma programme.

In this latest ALLIANCE Live podcast, the ALLIANCE's Policy and Communications Director, Lucy Mulvagh, talks to Wendy Halliday, Director of See Me. As well as exploring 'kindness', this year's theme for Mental Health Awareness Week, Wendy talks about: