Working together to make Verwood and Three Legged Cross Dementia Friendly – The Launch Event
In June, the Verwood and Three Legged Cross Dementia Friendly Community Association (VDFC) held the
ir launch event at the Crane Valley Golf Club. It was a lively affair and well supported by members of the public as well as local businesses and services supporting people with dementia and their family/carers.
What is a ‘dementia friendly community’ do I hear you ask? This is a great initiative from the Alzheimer’s Society. The aim is to support local communities to take responsibility for making sure that people living with dementia and their carers feel understood and valued and able to contribute to their local community. People living with dementia and their families can feel isolated as there is quite a stigma attached to the condition.
At the end of the day, people are just people, but living with a challenging condition. Like all members of the community we want them to feel valued and welcome and understood by local businesses and community groups. Part of this is helping more people understand about dementia and get some simple tips about enhancing communication. This was one of the aims of the launch event.
VDFC is championed by the town council but is an independent community association run by local residents. The lunch event comprised an exhibition of organisations supporting people with dementia including local care homes (Waypoints, Oakdene, Waterloo), GP practices (The Surgery, Cranborne Practice), Music for the Mind, Aster Living Telecare, Wiltshire Farm Foods.
Also,(shown below,) Ann Mayo Senior Springtime exercise classes,
Alzheimers Society, POPPS and Wayfinders. Running alongside was a programme of events, interspersed with wonderful tea and cakes provided by the Golf Club and funded by a grant from Verwood Town Council. . This included an introduction from the VDFC chair, Dr Janet Scammell who shared some of her experiences of a family member with dementia, plus talks from Vince Seabright, the local community psychiatric nurse, Ros Fricker the local Community Police Officer, Debbie Horlock from the Alzheimer’s society and finally a talk about the importance of nutrition and hydration from Dr Jane Murphy from Bournemouth University. At the mid-point Ann ran a snippet from one of her exercise classes, which went down very well as it got everybody moving (and laughing)!
There was a photography competition with 14 entries. The winner was Martina who received a wonderful hamper donated by Morrison’s supermarket Verwood; her entry will feature on the front of our new leaflet. We had a suggestions board to help us think about our way forward to serve our community better. We have a number of priorities:
- Increasing community membership (If you are interested please email Sally: info@vdfca.com
- Launching an information leaflet (planned for Autumn 2016)
- Setting up local regular Dementia Friends information sessions
- Raising awareness of social events that are already taking place
We would love to hear your ideas too, so feel free to get in touch on the above email. If want to know more please explore our website www.vdfc.com