Diabetes UK Cymru support and resources

In March this year we launched our Diabetes UK Cymru Befriending Circle which provides people with phone and email-based peer support. We match people with our trained volunteers based on their experience of diabetes. We hoped this would help to reduce isolation and give people the chance to receive peer support from someone else who knows what it is like to live with the condition.

The befriending circle is for anyone living with diabetes, carers of and anyone who may be at risk of diabetes. Please contact Lucy Snell – contact details and more information can be found here.  Lucy will get in contact with them just to find out what sort of support they are looking for and what sort of day/time they would like to speak with someone so they can be matched with a volunteer that has the capacity to support them.

We also hold virtual monthly peer support sessions to connect people who also face the daily challenges of managing diabetes. It is a safe place to share your feelings and experiences with other people who have diabetes. We cover a variety of topics such as fitness, healthy eating, footcare, Diabetes UK resources. Our next session is on Thursday 9th December at 2pm, in this session we will be doing a cooking demonstration with Richard Shaw from Cooking Together who will show us how to cook healthy Christmas recipes. Anyone can register to join here https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAkfu6hqTIrHNJaSwF8dE4LjSDgHNn3pNlh. 

We will continue our virtual peer support into the new year however we will be changing the way we do it, once we have the schedule finalised for 2022 this will be circulated.

We also have Diabetes UK local groups and family groups across Wales which hold social events, they fundraise, campaign and raise awareness of diabetes. Local groups can be found by typing in your postcode into our local group search bar here https://www.diabetes.org.uk/how_we_help/local_support_groups.