Posted 23.08.2022

​We’re working towards becoming Dementia Friendly!

We’re working towards becoming Dementia Friendly!

We’ve taken action to make our organisation more welcoming and accessible for our tenants and staff who are affected by dementia.

What did we do?

Our staff developed an approach to roll-out Dementia Friends across the organisation by nominating a staff member to become a Dementia Friend Champion’s by attending specialist training. Alongside this, our staff have committed to using accessible language across our organisation by avoiding jargon, using words efficiently and ensuring the mirroring of our verbal and non-verbal communication.

Our Involvement Officer, Tracy James said:

“We were keen to make the Dementia Friendly pledge to enable us to provide not only a more welcoming and accessible service for our residents who are affected by dementia, but also to better support our staff”.

The physical environments of our housing schemes were reviewed using specialist resources, as part of building on the adaptions which had recently been made to existing signage as part of our existing equity, diversity, and inclusion agenda. The recommendations to ensure increased accessibility will also be considered by us when designing our future-proof homes.

Information about available resources and support for dementia was circulated to all our staff via our internal social media, our staff newsletter, and to our tenants via social media to maximise engagement and understanding of dementia and what support is available. 

We’ve ensured more accessible virtual meetings with our tenants through applying the recommendations in the virtual environment’s checklist for each stage of the meeting process and have committed to providing tenants with free digital equipment and training to increase skill and confidence levels.

We’ve reviewed our policies and guidelines to ensure that there is increased flexibility and support for our staff with caring roles and responsibilities, as well as updating our independent living policies for tenants which are reflective of the specific needs of people living with dementia.

The future

We are also planning to introduce memory cafes as part of our offer to tenants based in their independent living schemes, including the organisation of intergenerational activities, to increase the availability of responsive support for those living with dementia.

Our commitment to working towards becoming Dementia Friendly is reflected in our development of a broader training offer for dementia across the organisation, as well as awareness raising across the sector to support wider participation in pledging for the benefit of those directly affected.

We’ve reported an increase in confidence in meeting the needs of people living with dementia before and after engaging in the ‘Working to become Dementia Friendly’ recognition process, enabling our tenants to feel reassured that their needs will be recognised and effectively supported.

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