New leaders for support charity

A West Sussex charity providing support to carers has appointed a new chief executive and chairman.

Carers Support West Sussex supports nearly 24,000 carers living in West Sussex who find themselves in an unpaid caring role for family members, friends and children living with a range of life limiting conditions.

They provide services including a dedicated carer response line open six days a week, more than 50 monthly carers’ groups, a carer learning and wellbeing programme offering free workshops and a carer equipment service to support those in a caring role.

The charity has appointed Sonia Mangan as its new chief executive and Robert Adams as its new chair of the board of trustees.

Sonia started her career as a nurse working with the elderly and then moved into NHS management. She has since held a number of leadership roles in the voluntary sector and was chief executive of Age UK in the Horsham district up until July.

She said: “Carers Support West Sussex have a dedicated team of staff and volunteers working to support unpaid carers who are family members, friends and neighbours for people who need support to keep on living the life they want and need to. We care because they do and we are supporting almost 25,000 carers in this county.”

Meanwhile Robert has held a number of trustee roles in the charity sector and for seven years was the chief executive officer of an international maritime charity. His first contact with Carers Support West Sussex was in July 2017 as a full-time carer for his wife. A year later he volunteered and has been on the board as a trustee ever since.

Carers wanting to find out more about the support they can access can call 0300 028 8888 or visit www. carerssupport.org.uk