Alison McInnes MSP supports carers and carers' centre in Peterhead

Aberdeenshire MSP, Alison McInnes, will visit the VSA Carers' Centre in Peterhead to show her support to unpaid carers and young carers during this year's Carers' Week. The visit will start at Peterhead Health Centre at 2pm with the unveiling of the "Life of my Own" montage which has been produced locally, followed by afternoon tea and an informal chat to carers at the centre.

Carers Week (14-20 June 2010) takes place each year and celebrates the enormous contribution made by Scotland's 657,000 unpaid carers and 100,000 young carers as they provide personal, emotional and practical support to family members who can't manage without their help because of disability, frailty, sickness or substance misuse or mental health issues. In Aberdeenshire alone there are over 29,000 unpaid carers. The contribution carers and young carers make to society is estimated to save the public purse £7.68 billion a year.

Alison McInnes will meet both carers and staff at the Carers' Centre in Peterhead and hear about the day to day challenges that carers face, the support they need and how difficult it can be to have a life outside of caring. The Centre provides information and advice on rights, services and benefits and enables young carers to get away from their caring and be children first.

Alison McInnes said: "I am looking forward to this visit; to seeing the montage of carers' photographs and statements compiled by the local carers support worker, Lucy Whiteman. "I realise the difficulties people face in balancing full time caring roles with having time to themselves and the importance of the carers centre. I am sure the local people that I meet will all have different stories to tell and will have various issues and concerns that face them as carers."