At the December Lodge meeting of St Bega Lodge, St Bees, the lodge received a talk from Lesley Amor and Claire Hines from Copeland Age and Advice Service (CAAS). An excellent evening was had, and a donation was made of £100 from St. Bega Lodge, to CAAS.
Copeland Age and Advice Service (CAAS) is a not-for-profit Social Enterprise providing information, advice and support to over 55’s in Copeland to enable them to live safely and independently. The service launched in October 2019 and has supported over 2500 clients to date. Their top priorities are Poverty, Loneliness and Isolation, Long-term health problems both physical and mental. The team provide early intervention/preventative support to individuals who, if left unsupported would more likely need to rely on Social Care and NHS services in the future.
Their services link with the Cumbria County Council Health and Wellbeing Strategy which states “The health and wellbeing gap: if the nation fails to get serious about prevention, then health and wellbeing as a problem will continue to grow, inequalities across the country will widen and we will continue to spend billions of pounds on avoidable treatment which will also, as a result, limit our ability to fund new research and treatments.”
The team have vast experience in supporting the older generation having previously worked for the Place Based Prevention service (previously run by Age UK West Cumbria). They were made redundant from this role when this service sadly came to an end in April 2019 and decided to set up CAAS when they realised that that the end of this service left a large gap in service provision that had a huge impact on clients, families, the NHS, Social Care and other third sector organisations in Copeland, many of whom were already under great strain due to an ever-increasing ageing population in the area combined with the reduction in local budgets.
Local Freemasons supporting local charities.
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