A MENOPAUSE event in Workington was hailed a huge success by those who attended.

A team of Social Prescribers and Health Coaches based in Workington Hospital set up the event to help, support and signpost patients to engage to the right form of advice to hopefully improve their wellbeing

The organisers felt there was a need to help and support the ladies of Workington around the Menopause & with it being Menopause Awareness month, what a better time to do it.

Organisers said:

"Nobody should be marginalised and patronised or made to feel disconnected lonely and invisible and we wanted to tell them you are visible ,you are important and you are heard."

The Social Prescribers applied for funding and the North Cumbria Integrated Care Community ( ICC ) agreed to support them, "without this it wouldn’t have been possible  so we set the ball rolling", they said.

The team made up of Kelly Holliday, Jacqueline Ellery, Debbie Adair, Laura Humphreys and Elaine Lewis from the council joined forces and looked at what they would need to make this a success .

The Carnegie kindly hosted the event for free, and the ladies had a lot of kind support from local businesses including Solo beauty, Alternative Menopause, Morrison’s, Washington Central, Mott Macdonald, M&S, Tesco, Northern Soul Scents, Al’s Kitchen, Wreath with envy, and Flowers by Annabelle Rose.

Barbara Rutherford who is a Menopause champion and travels all over the UK doing talks around the Menopause spoke at the event along with Together We who are a support service and recovery college.

 Fit For Life did a presentation on physical activity and menopause. The Sanctuary and Anne Wilson Blacklock talked around Holistic Therapy and her own personal journey. Whilst Emma Thompson, Health Advocate for Allerdale Borough Council presented "let’s talk menopause in the workplace."

There were various stalls from different organisations and the ladies were offered refreshments and a goodie bag with lots of information to help support them.

The event was a huge success with over 130 attending the feedback

we have received has been positively overwhelming, feedback from the night included:

"You all smashed it, hopefully there will be more." and "That was fab, great turn out, look forward to the next event."

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