I’m delighted to announce that D4Dementia is 13 years old today. I really appreciate all the amazing support that has enabled D4Dementia to become one of the foremost dementia blogs in the world, loved by families and professionals alike.
As an Ambassador for BRACE I am always keen to support their work, so it was wonderful to attend and speak at today’s ‘Let’s Talk Dementia’ event in Bristol. Let’s Talk Dementia is a free, public information event (run as a collaboration by BRACE, Alive Activities and Bristol Dementia Action Alliance) that offers attendees the chance…
I was delighted to be invited by Care Talk to join an esteemed panel of experts for their Dementia Care Roundtable event today entitled, ‘Collaborating for Change: Shaping the Future of Dementia Care’. We debated key issues affecting people with dementia and their families/unpaid carers/care partners, as well as challenges impacting services and professionals working…
I am immensely proud to have been commissioned and now delivered a comprehensive resource for Home Instead Norfolk to run Community Dementia Awareness Sessions. The resources is focused on post-diagnostic support and includes in-depth sessions on how to make a person’s environment enabling for them, how to communicate effectively and how to begin life story…
I was delighted to be invited back as a speaker for today’s The Alzheimer’s and Dementia Show. The description of my session, entitled ‘Wellbeing and Dementia – There’s no need to reinvent the wheel!’ was: How do you take a simple wellbeing structure, created in 2008, and use it to enhance dementia support in 2025?…
I’ve been privileged to work with MacIntyre to support their Dementia Special Interest Groups (DSIGs) since October 2013. I think I’ve now attend 30+ of these inspiring and informative meetings (here is an example from 2015), which in recent years I’ve co-hosted with Nicola Payne, MacIntyre’s Best Practice Manager for Health and Families. The MacIntyre…
Having been a judge for the 2024 Markel 3rd Sector Care Awards, I was delighted to be asked back as a judge again for the 2025 awards. It was wonderful being at the Awards today to see all the finalists celebrated and the winners pick up their awards. So much inspirational work and wonderful individuals,…
Yesterday I chaired a panel at the LaingBuisson Innovation in Care Summit, which took place at Etihad Stadium, Manchester. The title of our session was: ‘Driving Innovation in Dementia Care’ and I was joined by: Giles Wilmore – Manchester Camerata Vivien Ziwocha – Boergog Care George Rook – Activist and Campaigner Jennifer Bray – University…
As part of my roles with Dementia Community I host monthly webinars. We have an exciting programme coming up in 2025, including speakers from January-June on the following topics: Holidaying with dementia Ask an Admiral Nurse Changing the cultural approach to care with Namaste Care International Understanding the impact of sight loss for people living…
I’ve joined social media platform Bluesky – you can find my account here if you’d like to follow me: https://bsky.app/profile/bethyb1886.bsky.social I remain on my other social media platforms too – LinkedIn, Twitter (X) and Facebook.
Yesterday I was part of a roundtable discussion, hosted by PainChek, to explore the importance of maintaining independence for people living with dementia. Drew Hunt from PainChek hosted the roundtable, with Chris Norris, who lives with dementia, Professor Martin Green from Care England, Hannah Millar from Orchard Care Homes, Louis Holmes from North Central London…
Today marks the 1 year anniversary of my curation of the Dementia Community News Feed. This is part of the work I undertake for Dementia Community as their Communication Support. So far over 400 news items that I’ve researched and written have been published and I look forward to sharing many more in the future.…
I’m delighted to be shortlisted as a finalist at tonight’s Women Achieving Greatness in Social Care (WAGS) awards in the ‘Talent Development’ category. The promotional material for the awards says: “Over 85% of the social care workforce is female. Many of these hard working, dedicated and talented women juggle the challenges of family life with their…
It’s been fantastic to have the opportunity to present twice during UK Dementia Congress 2024. On Tuesday 26 November I shared the stage with Nicola Payne, MacIntyre’s Best Practice Manager for Health and Families, as we presented: ‘One Size Doesn’t Fit All : Bespoke Learning Disabilities support when living with Dementia’. Brilliant to be in…
Having become double-winners for our co-designed and co-delivered Loss and Bereavement Training for ARC England in conjunction with MacIntyre, Jess Hiles, Nicola Payne and myself have loved being back together to deliver this training three times during October 2024. We began by delivering it in-house for MacIntyre staff before providing a closed-session for one of…
As part of my roles with Dementia Community I host monthly webinars, which today has included hosting my first Open Space webinar. Dementia Community Open Space webinars are a chance to network with Dementia Community members, share work, ideas, projects and future plans relating to dementia care and support, and find out more about Dementia…
I’ve been privileged to work with MacIntyre to support their Dementia Special Interest Groups (DSIGs) since October 2013. I think I’ve now attend 30+ of these inspiring and informative meetings (here is an example from 2015), which in recent years I’ve co-hosted with Nicola Payne, MacIntyre’s Best Practice Manager for Health and Families. The DSIG’s…
As a supporter of Dementia Adventure’s work, I was very happy to be asked onto their highly acclaimed D Tour podcast to share my thoughts on micro adventures and some of the small things we did with my dad that involved being outside. You can listen to my episode, ‘The Bucket List’, here: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/0b85f8da-64d5-4bc7-9fb3-7945f08f1f05/ Many…
I was honoured to join Barbara Stephens today to jointly MC the 14th National Dementia Care Awards in Sheffield. It’s been a wonderful day celebrating the best in dementia care and support. Huge congratulations to all the finalists and winners, all of whom are listed here: https://journalofdementiacare.co.uk/events/national-dementia-care-awards A shout-out to the Dementia Community team too…
I was delighted to join a panel at today’s first Person Centred Software Customer Engagement Conference. Chaired by Hannah Millar of Orchard Care, I was joined by a person living with dementia (not named at the person’s request) and Lucy O’Flaherty, CEO of Columbia Aged Care in Australia. We discussed: ‘Understanding the person behind the…
