Dementia-friendly physical environment for churches
Published: 25th November 2024In our buildings, what’s helpful or unhelpful for someone with dementia?
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In our buildings, what’s helpful or unhelpful for someone with dementia?
Dementia awareness service at East Telford benefice – and for your church
Knowing and welcoming individuals - in Rocester
Turning a church into a laundry, complete with thunder and lightning is perfectly normal for Julie and Louise as they support adults with complex needs and people affected by dementia.
For Dementia Action Week 13–19 May 2024
Across our Dementia-friendly Churches Network, what's working? What's helpful? What's important? A report from Staffordshire University helps us take stock.
The warmth of the atmosphere is what struck me first and foremost as I arrived at Time Together, run by Churches Together in Whitchurch at Bargates Hall beside St Alkmund’s Church. St Alkmund’s has had a dementia-friendly church Certificate since 2018.
In 2022/3, our first ten schools across the Diocese of Lichfield signed up for Dementia-Friendly School framework and Certificate.
A good way to make your church’s welcome more dementia-friendly is to run a session for Welcomers. Why not try the format which has been used effectively at St Mary’s Church, Market Drayton?
Christ Church Burntwood has been engaged with become a more dementia-friendly church at the heart of a dementia-friendly community for some while now.
Our third Dementia Action Week story comes from Shropshire
Our second Dementia Action Week blog comes from Di Holt, a Reader at St Luke’s Church, Cannock.
Schools as well as churches can become Dementia-friendly places. St Paul's Longton is one school taking steps:
In the run up to Dementia Action Week, prayers are the solace many have contributed in our Share A Prayer Through Dementia Initiative.
This year, people from across the diocese have contributed prayers from the heart, with our “Share a Prayer through Dementia” initiative, giving fresh prayers to use in Dementia Action Week (15-21 May)
This resource is born of personal experience. My dad died in 2018 and he was diagnosed with dementia ten years earlier. He’d been a solicitor in Birmingham and spent his working life making incisive, head-level connections. The journey of the last decade of his life was a journey from head to heart.
Lichfield Cathedral has recently joined 94 other churches in our Diocese that our recognised with a Dementia-Friendly Church Certificate
What would it take for every single church in our diocese to be able to say confidently, “Dementia awareness is part of church life”.
“When you know one person living with dementia… you know one person living with dementia”!
Giving space for lamenting and celebrating
Reviewing the dementia-friendly churches network in 2021, here's an overview, at head and heart level.
People affected by dementia live through unchosen challenges. Within our Diocese of Lichfield dementia-friendly churches network, we are focusing this autumn on three pictures that help us to see the bigger picture, noticing God’s presence as dementia progresses.
How does our experience of dementia affect our faith?
St David, the patron saint of Wales, recognised that small steps can make a massive difference.
How does our Diocese of Lichfield Dementia-Friendly Churches network fit in with our “Shaping for Mission†programme across our 28 deaneries and our Diocese of Lichfield?
At a recent dementia-friendly churches local network meeting, we shared personal experiences of dementia. What had been the impact for us? What had motivated us to continue to take action on dementia now?
Warm Welcome dementia is a group run by the churches in Newport for anyone living with dementia and memory problems. The group has been awarded a High Sheriff of Shropshire Award, given to groups or individuals who have contributed to their local community.
Dementia-friendly Churches Enabler, Sarah Thorpe brings news from the eastern tip of the diocese
Celebration and lamentation in the dementia-friends community before Christmas
Bishop Michael Ipgrave, the Bishop of Lichfield, affirmed that he is “proud to be part of Diocese that takes Dementia-Friendly Church seriouslyâ€, when he spoke at our Dementia-Friendly Churches Zoom Training Day in October 2020.