North Swindon MP Welcomes Swindon Carers To Community Office

Justin Tomlinson MP has welcomed the Swindon Carers’ Centre to his community office to host their Carers’ Lead Forum. 

The Carers’ Centre regularly uses the office for meetings, training sessions and events with young carers. Justin was joined in the office this week by Karigan, aged 15, of Highworth Warneford School for work experience.

Karigan was an excellent addition to the team this week and helped with casework, research and preparing briefings.  She also assisted with the running of the event and wrote this account:

On Tuesday 27^th June in the MP’s office in Swindon we had a visit from a friendly group of people who previously requested to use our room for a lunch gathering. This group of people were the Swindon Young Carers who pride themselves in working to help as many young carers as possible through assistance and understanding. Justin Tomlinson, without hesitation, accepted their request and agreed to let them use our office room. 

As we were expecting their arrival we immediately greeted them at the door with a big smile and a welcoming atmosphere. Quickly the office became very busy as new people continued to arrive; each greeted with the same smile as before. To make them feel welcome we approached each visitor requesting their choice in beverage.

Despite this taking a long time due to the amount of people it was humbling for all of us to see how pleased and grateful they were for our assistance. After a well organised pleasant lunch they began their discussions of improvements and future reforms they could make to their organisation. We all felt very special to have the opportunity to be in their presence and to be able to listen to all the work they have done with 60 schools involved. We enjoyed being able to offer them somewhere to hold their meeting as they have done so much work for our community and have the same aims as Justin-  to better Swindon.

Their meeting consisted of ways to improve the scheme and the CEO very rightly stated “Swindon is special”. In the MP’s office in Swindon we couldn’t agree more as we pride ourselves in solutions and helping contribute to the community. Our office provided a spacious and quiet place for them to work whilst we continued respectfully with our day to day work. We felt a strong link to this particular group as of the work they do and we have welcomed this organisation before; in April where Justin welcomed 7 kids from this organisation to enjoy a masterclass with a local film maker. Justin is very much invested in the work they do and was keen to offer his services as best as he could.

As the meeting came to a close we were thanked with gratitude from the CEO of Swindon’s Young Carers who said “A big thank you to Justin’s office…’ and ‘… it was really friendly which made it very enjoyable in which we would like to come again”. In turn, we were very grateful for their kind words and felt it was a very successful afternoon and a great way to show our appreciation.

If you would like more information about using Justin’s community office or are interested in work experience in Justin’s office, please contact us on: justin.tomlinson.mp@parliament.uk.