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| Poster presentation; apologies for the poor quality! |
I was interested in finding creative, engaging projects that put the person with dementia at the heart of them and hearing more about the current hot topic of dementia-friendly communities. Here are some of my personal highlights:
Circles of Support
presentation: this is a partnership between Innovations in
Dementia and NDTi (National Development Team for Inclusion). They are supporting people living with dementia to connect with
families and communities in Mid Devon, Dorset, West London and Hampshire; to
make changes and allow them to stay connected with people and live their lives.
How
the ‘circle’ works is that a group of people come together to support one
person living with dementia, they are led by a facilitator. This is someone who
is essential to setting up the group and helping it to run. The people in the circle can be anyone, not
just family and friends.
So
far, these circles have helped:
- A man inform his employers of his diagnosis
- Introduce couples to each other, to help maintain their social interactions
- Find volunteers to support and take part in chosen activities with people living with dementia
- A family organise live-in care
- Walking groups to get people living with dementia involved in their rambles
There
were several presentations on Dementia
Friendly Communities:
York was the first DFC
in England. They carried out walking
interviews with people living with dementia, had debates, visits, interviews and films to find out how
they could improve the city. Bradford followed with a lot of awareness being increased within the South Asian communities. However, the town that drew my interest was MOTHERWELL in Scotland.
Motherwell created a dementia-friendly environment in a small town centre that was suffering from economic depression; closing shops and run-down areas were the 'norm'. NHS Lanarkshire and Alzheimer Scotland worked together and encouraged businesses and services to sign
up.....apparently using techniques seen on The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den! Their USP was “Be the first!” which seemed to
have worked really well because they won this year’s Best Dementia Friendly
Initiative at the Alzheimer Scotland Awards.
From a creative point of view there was the Music Mirrors project. Musical ‘self portraits’ developed with
people living with dementia. Significant music and not preferred music is compiled from
conversations with people living with dementia. Music that links people to places, events or other people is what's important here, not what their favourite music is. These musical
pieces are then linked by short written snippets from the interviewees. The recordings are saved onto a CD, USB stick
or even linked to YouTube via emails.
This allows them to be able to accompany the individual no matter where
they are living. They can be used in
reminiscence sessions but also to communicate and engage with people with dementia.
This project reminded me very much of how we engaged the
Trevarna residents in their garden re-design, by looking at the significance of
outdoor environments to them and gathering memories and personal stories rather than asking the question “What’s your
favourite flower?”. We got so much from
that approach and I think these musical portraits will do the same.......it’s a
good recipe!
I also went to the “Whose Shoes?” workshop. This was only a taster presentation of their on-line "Whose Shoes?" toolkit. So it was a shame it was too short a time for them to talk about everything they wanted to but they were still able to provide a flavour of what this toolkit can do. Gill is a very inspirational speaker, you can sense that this is something very personal for her. We sat in small groups and were given several statements (provided by either carer/business provider/person with dementia/family member) and asked to discuss the statement and write down a precis of our discussion. It's at this point that the whole room buzzed to the sound of conversations. That in itself is always a good indicator that people are participating in your session. The notes were then provided to a graphic artist who was making a visual representation of the discussion outcomes. I hope that we get to see them on the "Whose Shoes?" BLOG at some point.
If you've never been to a UK Dementia Congress then please do try and go one year. The people that attend, whether speakers or not, are so inspirational you can't help but feel invigorated by it all. I'm off to try and scribble down all these new thoughts I have about outdoors and dementia now...........
Wendy
Project Manager
