Takeover Day

We are year 6 pupils from Gledhow Primary School and we are dementia friends.

 

We have had the amazing opportunity to be part of the NHS Takeover day at the Shine Centre in Harehills. Takeover day is where children get to take over the world of work and this has been an amazing opportunity to learn about Dementia  and how it affects the sufferer we learned how to approach and talk to someone with dementia.

Today was a special day because there was some new staff for the NHS here for induction .we made a display board about dementia friends and showed it in a market stall for takeover day. New NHS staff were looking at the different stalls. Bunting and drawings were used to attract their attention, sometimes they came to ours, so we asked them a question ‘If someone reacted to you in a strange way, how would you deal with it?’   Also we had the opportunity to browse the stalls ourselves finding out about other parts of the NHS. We were able to go around and ask people in the NHS about what their favourite bit in their job. I have learnt a lot about what peoples jobs are in the NHS such as; library services, weight management, safe guarding, trade union and a lot more.

We think it was really fun and informative and think that it should definitely happen again!

Written by:

Marley, Hussein, Evie, Charlotte, Ewan, Lucy, Aimee and Mohsin

I get by with a little help from my friends

Recently I became a Dementia Friend.

Su McAlpin, Dementia Friends Champion at
LCH with 'Gina'  

I have a personal interest in the Dementia Friends campaign but in my role of Communications officer at Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, I went along to one of the trust's training sessions to see what it involves and how we could help promote the campaign internally to colleagues.

On arriving at the session, I explained to the leaders I was there from a ‘comms perspective’ and said I would sit to one side so not to disrupt the session. I was encouraged to take part; I didn’t realise anyone could become a Dementia Friend, you don’t need to be a healthcare professional. The awareness is useful, regardless of whether you’re at work or doing the weekly shop.

The training session is just an hour long but gives you a really good insight in to what things we can do to make our community dementia friendly. There are lots of great analogies that help you to understand what it can be like for a person with dementia. For example, you’re walking in to a health centre and there is a black mat at the entrance. You would cross the mat, enter the building and go on to attend your appointment. To a person with dementia, they may see the mat as a black hole and don’t want to step on to it for fear of falling in to it. This could make them scared to access the building and prevent them from going to their appointment.

After talking to the trust’s Dementia Friends Champion, Su McAlpin, I found out that around 100 of the trust’s front of house staff have been trained as Dementia Friends recently with more to follow. They’re the first people that greet patients so it’s important they recognise the signs and know how to support someone. Su is running a number of training sessions internally and also externally - recently, she spoke to a local Beavers group. We’re also looking at all our buildings to make sure they are dementia friendly too.

The campaign is aiming to create 1 million dementia friends by 2015. You don’t need to go along to a session, you can also sign up to be a dementia friend online at www.dementiafriends.org.uk 

Let’s all help to make Leeds a dementia friendly community!

Sarah Elwell, Communications officer

@LCHNHSTrust 

#DementiaFriends