Dementia Friendly WorthingDementia Friendly Worthing
The Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Friends programme is the largest ever initiative to change people’s perceptions of dementia. It aims to transform the way the nation thinks, acts and talks about the condition.
Dementia Friends is understanding more about dementia and encouraging you to turn that learning into an action. Anyone, of any age, can be a Dementia Friend and it is often the small things that people do – like spreading the word about Dementia Friends or visiting someone you know who has dementia – that really helps.
The Dementia Friends Information Sessions are run by volunteer Dementia Friends Champions, who are trained and supported by Alzheimer’s Society. Each session lasts about an hour. If you take part, you will learn more about dementia, in a very enlightened way, and how you can help encourage communities, just like Worthing, to become dementia friendly.
Dementia Friends Information Sessions in the Worthing area started in 2014 and have included local surgeries (link to ‘for me and my carer), churches (link to for me and my carer) and young people in schools and colleges.
We believe there are now over 2,000 people in the Worthing area, who have become Dementia Friends in the last three years, it may be more…
You can search for Dementia Friends sessions online or join one of the monthly sessions organised by Bennett Griffin Solicitors at their offices in Ferring
You can also become a Dementia Friend by watching an online video where you will meet Gina who is living with dementia and learn more about what it is like to live with the condition. Once you have watched the video you can sign up for your ‘Little Book of Friendship’, a resource pack which contains more information and tips on how people can be supported to feel a part of our community.
Worthing’s Dementia Action Alliance has been working towards becoming a Dementia Friendly Community for some while. Included in the process there is a BSI Code of Practice and a structure with key areas of action.
These include:
For more details visit dementiafriends.org.uk
A Dementia Friendly Community recognises and embraces the challenges that people living with dementia and their families experience and enables them to live life fully in the community.
Through working with key partners, services, charities, businesses, and organisations we would like Worthing, and Adur, to become a model of excellence so that those people who have been diagnosed can feel safe within the community through increasing knowledge and awareness of dementia.
We are continuing to open up communication, increase understanding, remove the stigma and other barriers, hopefully making the community a friendly and supportive area in which to live, work and visit.
Working in partnership, we can provide the support services and the opportunities for people with dementia, and their carers, to enjoy a long life and activities for as long as they wish.
The local organisations, charities, and businesses who are members of Worthing’s Dementia Action Alliance are listed on the DAA website’s Worthing page. If you would like to know more about membership, please email Dawn Fairbrother at Dawn.Fairbrother@alzheimers.org.uk.
The Alzheimers Society have regulations for their Dementia Friends logo guidelines and Working to become part of the Dementia Friendly Communities.