A voluntary organisation changing the way communities in Keighley think, talk and act about dementia. DFK provide an information and support centre and a range of activities and services to support those living with dementia, their carers and raise awareness and develop good practice with the wider community and business infrastructures. Dementia Friendly Keighley was the lead partner for this project and worked with partners on sections of the bid.

Julie Lintern – Dementia Friendly Keighley Manager – “During the course of this funding, Dementia Friendly Keighley has expanded support to enable us to support our clients throughout their dementia journey. For instance, our Respite & Reminiscence centre bases work altered, to offer ‘Time to Take, Aire’ a specific dementia respite service in the home. Our links with partners also improved greatly, which led to a better understanding of each other’s services and increased referrals. Strengthening these links also led to the local GP partnership sending a text to all their patients to promote our services and activities.”

During this time we also recruited an inclusivity worker to encourage the understanding of dementia within the BAME community but also to work with our own staff team and teams within partner organisations to ensure their services are culturally appropriate, this led to a joint bid from DFK, Meri Yaadain and the Mental Health Team to redesign the memory assessment service as one size doesn’t fit all.”

The Airedale Shopping Centre is located in the centre of Keighley, hosting a wide range of high street and local independent shops, along with coffee shops, a venue for events and is home to The Dementia Friendly Keighley Information and Support Centre.

The shopping centre and particularly the Centre Manager, Steve Seymour have been a major support throughout the growth of Dementia Friendly Keighley. From day one hosting our information stalls and helping the charity to secure a shop front for the Information and Support Centre. The centre have also actively been involved in ensuring dementia awareness amongst their staff and tenants.

Steve Seymour – Airedale Shopping Centre Manager – “Airedale Centre is in my view one of the most fortunate shopping Centre’s not only in the UK but across the whole shopping centre industry in having DFK as a Tenant and Partner and the essential free services, advice and support it provides to our customers and the area. Not just in Keighley, anyone who knows someone with dementia knows only too well the daily challenges they face and whilst the various Government and National agencies are there to support they do not deliver at the personal level that DFK can and have done over the years.

Having started as a small group working from a tabletop on the Malls, engaging with Customers to where they are now, is nothing short of a miracle especially as they like all businesses have had to manage the last 16-months under covid 19 and the challenges this has posed to their Customers who were stopped from seeing their loved ones in care homes and the isolation due to the need to self-isolate. So having a daily call and friendly voice to speak to and help them manage this incredibly difficult period were for me, lifesavers.

Having been part of the DFK Team from the first meetings and the Team that set up DFK I have personally learnt so much and gained more than I can say about dementia and its impact on the person with dementia and their family and how little was being done to allow them to stay active in the community. This included the lack of any guidance for shopping Centres on making them more accessible unlike the information for hospitals and care homes which can easily be transferred into the design and planning for shopping centres such as the choice of entrance matting font and size of writing and most importantly staff training.

Virtually all shopping centres will proudly shout about their DDA compliance and consider deafness, blind and wheelchairs for disability, very few will consider dementia and train their staff to know how to support a Customers living with dementia and this is or was also the case for retailers national and independent retailers who need specific support around training which DFK have tailored and adapted successfully in Keighley as one size does not fit all and this has made a positive impact on all the businesses who have been supported by DFK and their ability to recognise and support Customers allowing them to stay active in the community.

Keighley through DFK and their success is a town well ahead of the rest of the UK and has set standards for others to follow and again DFK has been instrumental in supporting other dementia groups set up and develop using their knowledge and experience. Also supporting network rail to create a dementia-friendly line and a programme to extend this along with staff training and awareness. The Centre has also used our experiences and learning to pass this on throughout not only our managing agents and client portfolio, but the whole shopping centre business to try and improve awareness of the impact caused by dementia not only to our customers but also our colleagues and how we can better support them. The Centre is proud and honoured to have DFK as a Tenant and a unique asset providing free essential advice & services, filling in missing links not provided by the government or NHS.”

The role of Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS provider of mental health, community health and specialist learning disability services. They support people of all ages who live in the Bradford, Airedale, Craven and Wakefield areas. This includes Meridian Older Peoples Mental Health Team, Dementia Assessment Unit and Airedale Centre for Mental Health.

This project has helped to deliver team workshops for practitioners to look at dementia in the BAME community, address gaps in knowledge, and look at service delivery. Dementia Friendly Keighley were also invited to team huddles, to ensure direct signposting to our services.

A local network of dementia communities in the Airedale and Craven locality that meet to look at joint initiatives and support each community. The dementia communities differ in size and aims, but all meet to share good practice and brought together by the Dementia Friendly Communities Co-ordinator.

Ross Collard – Dementia Friendly Communities Coordinator – Bradford District – Dementia Friendly Keighley have continued to link in with the other Dementia Friendly Communities in the Bradford District. Through contact with the Dementia Friendly Communities Coordinator information around key events, resources and knowledge can be shared and disseminated to other areas where Dementia Friendly Community work is active.

This further extends the base of resources that can be used by other communities and people and can therefore benefit people with Dementia, their carers and peoples knowledge in those areas.

Dementia Friendly Keighley’s work has also been used as an example to other areas interested in starting Dementia Friendly groups up.

The information available on the website and the resources developed can be an example to other people and volunteers in communities that want to make a difference to people with Dementia and their carers.

Provide information, advice and support to carers, to the people they care for and to professionals who work with them. Carers resource were identified as a partner as we already had an established partnership whereby their staff run appointments for our Information and Support Centre for carers and both charities signpost to each other and utilise resources.

This partnership is essential to the families we support so that we not only support the person living with dementia, but the carer too. We had aimed to do more work with Cares Resource and the Care Homes, but due to the impact of COVID-19 on the Care Homes it wasn’t viable.

This partnership developed through a founder member and volunteer of Dementia Friendly Keighley, Rod Tickner.

This led to the Bentham Line being given the accreditation of being a dementia friendly and also further printing and sharing of the Dementia Journey booklet.

Rod Tickner – Director of the Community Rail Partnership – “Alongside the dementia-related, work I am also a director of a Community Rail Partnership Company for the railway between Leeds and Morecambe. I brought my experience with Dementia Friendly Keighley to this organisation, and the ‘Journey Through Dementia’ booklet was invaluable here as well.

Through its use, the work of DFK was known from Sheffield up to Newcastle and across to Preston. I was privileged to be part of the groundbreaking development, the first dementia-friendly railway in the world and was mentioned in the recent White Paper on Railways (Williams-Shapps Review of Railways 2021) as an exemplar for all railways to follow.

This work brought me into contact with other groups along the 75-mile route who are providing care and support for those living with dementia, and I see this as an important development.”

    

A local family run care home providing care for a range of needs including dementia, nursing and residential care and also offer short stay respite care. We had already established a partnership with the care home as they had gained their Dementia Friendly Keighley Recognition Award and we were amazed what support they had in place already for people living with dementia.

The care home welcomed Dementia Friendly Keighley staff and volunteers to visit the care home pre-COVID-19, which enabled staff to experience first hand the challenges residents face and the support put in place. During COVID-19 this project helped set up a ‘zoom room’ to enable residents to keep in touch with their families and friends.

Mary Harrison – Registered Manager – Herncliffe Care Home – “When we went into lockdown in March 2020, we knew that this would have a significant impact on the residents and their loved ones. The home has always welcomed visiting at any time and was a vibrant and busy place prior to the pandemic. DFK recognised that it was a very challenging time for people living in care homes and for the staff caring for them and contacted me to ask if there was anything they could do to help us. We are a big care home, caring for a large number of residents living with dementia and with the help of DFK had gained our “Working towards being Dementia-friendly” Award in 2019. Both residents and staff had supported DFK with their fundraising events, the opening of their shop/drop-in centre and I had been invited to speak at their last AGM in January that year.

We needed to look at alternative ways of communicating with relatives and friends and one of the ways we did this was using Zoom. Initially, Staff were able to facilitate this on their mobile phones but the screens were small so we started to use the home’s laptops and iPad which still proved quite difficult for the residents.

During the summer months, we were able to facilitate outdoor visits but in the Autumn, and as we went into another lockdown, the weather turned colder, we recognised the need for a virtual visiting room. This is where DFK helped us. We worked with them to set up our “Zoom Room”. Following discussions with Hannah, DFK provided us with all the equipment to do this which included a large TV, laptop and microphone and camera. It didn’t take long to set up, it was a simple idea that made a huge difference to some of our residents and their families when they could not physically visit them in person.

Residents were supported to go into a lovely spacious room that was private and see their loved ones on a large screen. This was great for residents with sight and hearing difficulties and a massive improvement on seeing their relatives on a mobile phone or Ipad. It was hugely successful; one resident “virtually” celebrated her 97th birthday with all her family, residents connected with family members living both nearby and far and one resident used it to continue with his Parkinson’s Support Group Meetings.

As internal visiting started, we continued to use our Zoom Room. We have used it for virtual physiotherapy and dietician meetings, student nurses have accessed it for their training and residents still access it for keeping in touch with relatives that live far away.

The help and support from DFK enabled us to support residents to maintain much-needed contact with their loved ones, which has been crucial during the restrictions”

The Memory Tree is a Community Interest Company incorporated in October 2012 to provide dementia support in the local community.

Its main activity is to run Memory Clubs that meet twice a month in local communities to provide friendship, support and advice to people living with dementia and their carers.

At the current time there are Memory Clubs running in 4 locations within the Bradford Metropolitan area: Shipley, Idle, Keighley and Low Moor.

The success of our Memory Clubs depends on good partnership working with key organizations in each of the localities where a Club is based.

In Keighley, Dementia Friendly Keighley are a key partner. Our Keighley Memory Club began in January 2013 and it was not long after this that DFK was formed, so we have been working closely with DFK through the lifetime of both organizations.

This partnership although already established, was the foundation to the resource development for Home Resource Packs. The Memory Tree led on the development and piloting of suitable resources for people living with dementia and completing in their home.

Elizabeth – The Memory Tree – DFK helped get the word out about the Keighley Memory Club, initially via the monthly information stand manned in the Airedale Shopping Centre, and then the Information Office when this opened in 2017/2018. We have worked together on many fund-raising and awareness-raising events in Keighley over the years and have also shared and collaborated on staff/volunteer training.

The Memory Tree has in turn signposts people to a number of DFK services (helpline & information service, Zoom Arts group with Keighley Creative, Brown Cow group, memory walk in Cliffe Castle, re-opening of the Tai Chi group).

We are pleased to have worked with DFK to develop the Resources and Befriending project to a point whereby DFK could take the service forwards on its own, and we continue to work closely together to make sure that our activities complement each other and provide as broad a range of provision in Keighley as possible.

A local Community Investment Company that support people from Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities who face barriers in accessing dementia information, services and advocacy.

Meri Yaadain has provided the team with support and guidance and developed our Information Sheets to ensure we covered topics that benefit our BAME community and translated the resource into local community languages.

Mohammed Mohammed Akhlak Rauf MBE – Founder & Director of Meri Yaadain CIC – “It has been a pleasure to work with yourself and the colleagues at Dementia Friendly Keighley. I truly believe the partnership between Meri Yaadain CiC a nationally recognised expert organisation working on BAME dementia matters and the expert support offered by DFK, has been a process of building on mutual respect to improve the needs of BAME dementia care issues.

We have been very happy to offer translation services for some of your existing resources, to produce new resources for you in written and audio format as well as the ongoing work to get the video format information ready as part of DFK collection of information to target the Urdu and Bangla speaking / reading communities. We hope that our input and constructive approaches have been felt to be useful to DFK.

Together, I think we are bringing together the expert by experience, lived experience and a work experience to ensure your resources will offer equity to BAME people living with dementia and those caring for them. It has been a pleasure to have been working with you and the DFK colleagues. I am convinced the resources will be a great asset and will enable a wider cohort of people to engage with DFK, access appropriate information and seek support from the expertise of DFK staff; as well as supporting DFK to offer a wider range of informational resources to service users.”

The partnership consists of eight local GP practices who link their patients and carers with a dementia focus, and their social prescribers link people to Dementia Friendly Keighley.

We strengthened our partnership with these GP practices through this project as we implemented a rota of text messages to patients informing them of Dementia Friendly Keighley, working towards a Dementia Commitment to Care document, GP Dementia Custodian and linking social media platforms. During the project we delivered dementia awareness sessions to non-medical/front of house staff and improved referral links with their Social Prescribing Team.

Bill Graham – Community Innovation and development – Modality AWC Partnership – “Modality AWC is a provider of GP services to patients across the Airedale Wharfedale and Craven Footprint with over 88,000 patients. Based on the General Practice partnership model, we are an at scale provider of GP services.

We are keen to work with and develop links to local community health providers, community, resident and patient groups and VCS organisations for the benefit of our local patient population.

Like many areas in the UK we do have a significant ageing population and the opportunity to work in partnership with local charities such as Dementia Friendly Keighley (DFK) makes a lot of sense.

Our work has had several strands

• Making our staff team aware of Dementia Friendly Keighley
• We have a staff team in excess of 300 clinical and non clinical staff)
• We have developed a commitment to care document to share with staff raising awareness of dementia and the resources locally that can help pateints and carers.
• DFK have delivered training (dementia Friends) to our staff team at a PLT (protected learning time) session early in 2021 which was very well received
• Our intention to appoint a GP as an Dementia friendly ambassador and have dementia champions in our practices (not done yet due to capacity).

Practical steps to improve links between DFK and Modality patients

• We code patients as carers and with dementia – so we can identify and target pateints with specific messaging
• We have sent texts to relevant patients to raise awareness of DFK and support services if appropriate
• Supported and shared relevant social media campaigns where possible (facebook/ Twitter)
• Social prescribers are very aware of the service and our new pilot health coaches includes a seconded DFK member of staff to again help raise awareness of DFK and the support they offer within practice

Working towards the recognition award to make our practices dementia friendly and raise awareness of dementia among staff teams

We have also worked closely with DFK to second DFK staff for 3 months (Jan – April 2021) to work on our vaccination programme to make sure we got as as many vulnerable patients vaccinated as quickly as possible, and using the seconded staff skills and networks to promote the vaccination message. In Keighley we have seen above average take up of vaccinations in part due to this work.”

Baldev Singh Chaggar – Norwood House Nursing Home – “We are incredibly humbled and privileged to be able to work with such a generous charity in DFK. The sessions that you have organised, and continue to do so, will go a long way in ensuring our residents receive holistic care and providing them with utmost dignity during a difficult period of their lives. The reminiscence sessions are incredibly powerful and invoke such awesome memories of childhood and previous experiences for many.

I am grateful for being able to work alongside you all in delivering these sessions and programmes for our residents. I hope we continue to do so and work ever closer in ensuring the wider community recognise dementia and that we all become more educated to be able to ensure people’s dignity and self-respect, whilst being able to deliver the care that they deserve.

You are all doing a wonderful job and thank you again for working with Norwood House Nursing Home.”

Social prescribing is a way GP’s to refer people to a link worker. Link workers give people time, focusing on ‘what matters to me’ and taking a holistic approach to people’s health and wellbeing.

They connect people to community groups and statutory services for practical and emotional support. We already had a good referral network with the local Social Prescribers but this project enabled us to continue delivering services that supported their patients.

Midge Driver – Social Prescriber – Modality Partnership – “DFK are an invaluable resource in the community for people with memory difficulties or a diagnosis of dementia. I routinely signpost to DFK for information and advice and access to supportive social activities.

A few years ago I asked if they could deliver an awareness session for the staff at the GP practices I work for and they were marvellous. It was well attended and afterwards staff commented on how they gained new insights which helped them to better accommodate the needs and anxieties of some of the patients when they come into the surgery.

People with dementia and their carers form a significant portion of my caseload and it is extremely helpful to be able to connect them with DFK. I think everyone is desperate for face to face activities to resume again!”

Shamim Akhtar – Social Prescriber – Wharfedale, Airedale and Craven Alliance – “DFK are a really useful local resource that I often refer/signpost patients/carers into as a first point of contact. The referral process is simple and effective.

Staff at DFK are always friendly, helpful and on hand to answer any questions. Feedback from those referred has been positive, they find that being contacted by DFK in a timely manner is very important especially at a time when they often feel at a loss as to what to do or where to turn to for support.

DFK adapted during the pandemic and have continued to support patients and their carers/families during an extremely challenging and often isolating time. Look forward to continuing to work closely with DFK in the future.”