Hampshire Friends with ME hope to launch three separate, half-day training courses to introduce people to the challenges of living with ME.
They are offering a three-hour ME awareness training session which is intended to sort out the fact from the fiction about the common misconceptions of the illness, help people appreciate that the illness is broad and complex and how each person's experience may be different and to explore its impact on various people. This course will cost £35.
A Live with ME course – also three hours long – will help sufferers focus on things they can control and worry less about those they can't, reevaluate what's important in their lives and to explore some different ways of coping. Cost: £15.
And an ME at Home course is being mooted to help those in close relationships or in social contact with someone with ME explore the changes in the relationship since the person became ill and to increase levels of mutual support. One aim at the end of the three hours will be to give the participant five specific things they can think about and do to improve the relationship. Cost: £20.
To find out more about these courses, phone phone Hampshire Friends with ME group administrator Vicky Mould on 023 8083 7110 or email training@hantsmesupport.co.uk