What’s On

Our Team

Support for anyone affected by Dementia in the East Midlands

This programme consists of activities and events led by the views of people living with dementia and their families. Our philosophy is to listen to people who are directly affected by dementia, to share information about the services and support available to them and to help them to develop activities that meet their needs.

Our team offers support to people who want to establish or participate in peer support groups either online or face to face. We support groups to become independent and help with administration, organising and support group facilitators one to one.

The first group we supported called Friends for Life is part of the DEEP network and is a self-organising community group. They raise funds and plan activities for members with face-to-face meetings in Gedling when possible.

We offer a weekly craft group online sending out activity packs to participants and work on these together. We also have a monthly walking group and a city centre and Southwell dementia drop-in. We also provide weekly support calls to people who might be isolated or finding things particularly difficult.

In addition to our regular activities, we organise outings throughout the summer, to popular gardens, stately homes and the coast.

We also work with people affected by dementia to develop an annual educational event to share our experiences, learn about the latest research and support across the East Midlands.

If you would like to know more about our work, please get in touch with us.

Dementia Notes from Notts

This project funded by Boots Charitable Trust was designed to support people to create locally relevant resources. We planned to organise four meetings over twelve months to discuss the kinds of resources people would find helpful.

We ultimately organised seven meetings where we talked to family caregivers and people living with dementia about the information they wanted to share.

Firstly, we visited Baumber Walled Garden where we had an afternoon tea while discussing a range of questions, for example:

• Where they looked for information about dementia and health.
• What format of information they preferred – newsletters, emails, etc.
• What they would tell people just diagnosed with dementia
• What was the best support they have had so far
• What services or support they have found most helpful in Nottingham

The group decided they wanted to work on two resources, firstly a printed booklet called ‘What’s on in Notts’ with listings of local support and services, with up-to-date contact details and secondly The Dementia Journey  – wisdom from people affected by dementia.

The second activity was a trip to Sutton on Sea for a walk, fish and chips and a meeting to develop the next resources, a set of three posters with handy information and tips for people to display at meetings and in the city. People wanted to tell others, what made them feel good, offer a piece of advice and finally a financial tips poster.