Alzheimer’s Australia Vic has launched a toolkit to assist councils to make their local communities more dementia-friendly.
The ‘Creating dementia-friendly communities: a toolkit for local government’ was launched at Melbourne Town Hall earlier this year. The kit has been informed by wide-ranging collaboration with more than half of all Victorian councils, people living with dementia, carers and representatives from the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services and the Municipal Association of Victoria.
Alzheimer’s Australia Vic General Manager of Learning and Development, Dr David Sykes, said local councils are ideally placed to ensure that communities are vibrant, inclusive and supportive of all citizens, including people living with dementia.
“The toolkit provides information, resources and guidance for building on existing infrastructure, systems and services,” said Dr Sykes.
“We are keen for the toolkit to help council staff to understand that in partnership with people living with dementia they can become more dementia-friendly without having a big budget to work with.”
UK dementia expert Philly Hare officially launched the toolkit.
Since 2006 Ms Hare has been program manager at the major UK social policy research charity Joseph Rowntree Foundation and has led their “Dementia without Walls” program, which has championed the concept of dementia-friendly communities in the UK.
In 2016 Ms Hare is on secondment to Innovations in Dementia, focusing on disseminating the messages and learning from the program to achieve maximum impact. She also sits on the Prime Minister’s Dementia Champions Working Group in England.
“We all have a part to play in ensuring people with dementia remain connected in their local community but local governments have a really significant role to play because they deliver services, build infrastructure and set policies which have a direct impact on how the community operates,” said Ms Hare.
“I’m really pleased that the toolkit stresses to councils the importance of working with people with dementia to identify ways they can become more dementia-friendly as these direct insights are invaluable and help to ensure any changes made do actually meet their needs.”
The Commonwealth and Victorian Governments jointly funded the toolkit under the Home and Community Care (HACC) program.
‘Creating dementia-friendly communities: a toolkit for local government’ can be downloaded from www.fightdementia.org.au/vic
