Good Neighbours Tunbridge Wells

 

Creating a Dementia Friendly Church

Good Neighbours is a local charity in Tunbridge Wells.  It was started 9 years ago by a small group of people to address the growing needs of the elderly living in their community.

We were finding that more and more people were being referred to us who had dementia.  We were aware that faith groups are in daily contact with large numbers of people and yet were largely ignorant about dementia and how to make themselves more inclusive and welcoming to people with this illness.

We started to speak to those involved in faith groups, some of which were not interested as they felt that dementia was an illness not to be mentioned and that they already had sufficient experience of working with the elderly.This made us even more determined to try and address the situation, so we set about organising a free one day training programme.

We spoke to our local Alzheimer’s Society who offered their support and services.  We then made contact with Churches for Tunbridge Wells, whose leadership not only let us use a Church to hold the event but made a £500 donation towards the cost.

After speaking to several carers and to some of our clients who have dementia and their families, we decided on the topics to be discussed.

The day was incredibly successful with the feedback from our evaluation forms giving us 79% excellent and the remaining 21% good.   Over 90 attendees became dementia friends.

To find out more about the services that we are able to offer ring 01892 510200 or e-mail info@goodneighbourproject.org.uk