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DDG was invited by shaping our age to take part in research looking at well being in older people.

Shaping Our Age is a big lottery funded partnership project between WRVS and the Universities of Brunel and De Montfort and is all about involving older people in developing the services they receive.

Since May 2012, Shaping our Age has formed a partnership with Darnall Dementia Group which has involved carers and people living with dementia participating in focus group discussion and activities a with the Shaping our Age Involvement worker to:

• explore the term well-being and the barriers to achieving well-being
• explore life as a carer
• consider some key factors important when supporting people living with dementia in hospital settings

Feedback from the groups suggested enjoyment of the experience and importantly a sense of being listened to and a valued in the sharing ideas for contributing to service development.

Since September 2012 Shaping our Age and the groups from Darnall Dementia have come together to further explore the development of a project through which the voice of the group can be heard in presenting key messages about dementia and by doing so influencing the way people respond respond to people living with dementia.

The project will run between October 2012 and April 2013. It is hoped that the outcomes of the project will continue long after Shaping our Age and will be fulfilled under the umbrella Darnall Dementia Group.

Darnall Dementia Awareness Group was formed to take this work forward.

‘Striding Forward’: a dementia awareness toolkit is an interactive resource, created by Darnall Dementia Awareness Group through a partnership project with Shaping our Age.

Darnal Dementia Awareness Group (DDAG) brings together carers, bereaved carers and people living with dementia in a shared vision of outreach to different audiences in their local community, including health and social care professionals, local community groups, schools and members of the public.

The Toolkit contains five activities which encourage participants to consider the lives of people living with dementia and their carers and to reflect upon their own values when interacting with people living with dementia and their carers.

Over the coming weeks the group will be developing their work and the ‘Striding Forward’ outreach workshops.

Outreach workshops will incur a fee which will be negotiated with each organisation to create together a workshop tailored to meet specific needs.

The toolkit was launched on the 27th of February at the Victoria Hall, Sheffield. The event was attended by over 50 people representing people living with dementia, carers and care professionals. The delegates were given the opportunity to try out the 5 activities and were encouraged to give feedback on the experience and any suggestions they may have had on how to improve the toolkit. We had a very nice lunch which was generously donated by Sheffield Hallam University.

DDAG is reviewing the feedback and suggestions as a means of fine tuning the activities in the toolkit, we aim to begin our outreach workshops from May.