Hi All,
Hope you all have enjoyed the season's festivities and are keeping up with all those New Year resolutions. (Mine is to shift the Christmas indulgences from my waistline)
In this blog, I would like to talk to you about Dementia Action Alliances and the roles that they play within your local communities.
Who are they?
Dementia Action Alliances were set up in 2010 with the launch of the National Dementia Declaration to help bring together organisations across England to commit to improving social care outcomes for people living with dementia, and those who care for them.
They are made up of over 150 organisations across England who connect, share best practice and take action on dementia. Everything they do is in partnership, and informed by people living with dementia and those that care for them. The commitments made by these organisations is set up to radically improve the lives of people living with dementia. Using their collective experiences they look to influence Government policy and societal attitudes towards dementia.
What do they do?
Their aim is to capture and promote best practice, enabling it to benefit many more people. They formulate action plans which are then published on their website. They also encourage members to come together to share best practice and learn from each other through regular events - from conferences and expert-led round tables to workshops and webinars.
They campaign on major issues within health and social care to create system-wide change, and ensure that dementia does not prevent people living the lives they wish to.
So what are the benefits of being a member?
- Access to a network of health and social care professionals.
- Share best practice with other members, and learn from each other
- Collaborate with people living with dementia, and those that care for them.
- Invitations to their programme of events - which includes expert round tables, conferences and workshops.
- Influence over Government policy and societal attitudes towards dementia
- Campaign on the major issues in health and social care relating to people with dementia and carers.
- Showcase yourself as an organisation committed to taking action on dementia.
- Subscribe to their monthly newsletters, which includes updates on member activity and major trends within the sector.
- Engage with leaders from Government and across health and social care.
- Connect with others via their website and social media.
- Learn from their topic led webinars, podcasts and films.
- Opportunities to shape what they do, highlighting the issues that are important to people affected by dementia.
- Ensure your organisation is equipped to respond to the needs of people living with dementia.
So are you involved with any Dementia Action Alliances Mark?
Well it's funny you should ask that?
Gloucester Dementia Action Alliance
I am a member of the Gloucester Dementia Action Alliance. This consists of organisations including GreenSquare, The Trinity Centre, Shared Syndicate, Gloucester VCS Alliance, Trust In You, The Uplands Care Service, Gloucestershire Fire Service, University of the West of England, Managing Memory 2gether, Age UK Gloucestershire, Gloucester Citizen, Guideposts, Gloucester Cathedral, Stroud Care, The Redwell Centre, St. Catherine's Court, Gloucester Village Agents, 2gether Trust and the Alzheimer's Society Gloucestershire.
So quite a few organisations involved as you can see.
We were charged with making Gloucester a more dementia friendly city? And we are taking this rather seriously.
We have come up with the idea of running a Dementia Interactive Project. This is an educational learning tool that puts the person attending in the role of both the person with dementia and their carer. We started looking at how we could get this project funded and what the eventual costs could be. We looked at firstly storyboarding the project, looking at venues to facilitate the project and hiring actors to play the various roles. We worked on scenarios that we thought might resonate the most for people with dementia and their carers. Then we discussed all of this at our Dementia Action Alliance Meetings.
Lee Hawthorne of the Alzheimer's Society managed to talk to Collette Finnegan of Gloucestershire City Council, who managed to link us in with Gloucester Rugby Club. Gloucester Rugby Club ordered 2.500 snap bracelets which they then sold at their next home game in support of the Alliance at £1.00 per bracelet. They all sold out and raised us a grand total of £2,500. Gloucester Rugby also will be selling more snap bracelets at their home games to raise more money and will be putting on a celebrity golf fund raiser for the DAA in the summer. We are in the process of setting up a bank account to put these monies towards the project. This is being organised by Sian Merrion-Jones, the head of our Dementia Action Alliance and will be co-signed by myself, Sian and Lee.
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| Gloucester DAA from left to right: Mark Derbyshire (GreenSquare), Lee Hawthorne (Alzheimer's Society) and Sian Merrion-Jones (DAA Lead) |
We are looking at some crowd funding opportunities via the Internet and will be contacting Crowdfunder in relation to this.
Last night we received excellent news that the Council unanimously passed the motion that commits them to support people with dementia. Councillors from all 3 major political parties pledged their heartfelt support, which goes to show that there are certain things that cross any political divide and we at the DAA could not thank them enough. They have all pledged to help with the DAA. The Gloucester Citizen will be running with this story, with mention of what we are planning to do as a DAA, which is great publicity. Gloucester Rugby are also going to present us with a cheque of monies raised so far at one of their future home games, which again is great publicity for the cause.
If you would like to know more about the Gloucester Dementia Action Alliance then follow our Facebook link at
https://www.facebook.com/Gloucester-Dementia-Action-Alliance-642974152545287/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
I hope this inspires you all to go out and find a bit more about Dementia Action Alliances. So much can be achieved if we all get together, create a vision and then follow it through.
I look forward to speaking to you more throughout the year.
