A national public awareness campaign launched in May on the Dementia Friendsinitiative, to help people develop an understanding of dementia and turn it into action to help people in their community living with the disease by becoming Dementia Friends.
Dementia is one of the biggest health issues facing the UK – there are currently approximately 670,000 people in England who have dementia with one in three of us over 65 developing the disease.
Public Health England and Alzheimer’s Society have come together to form the Dementia Friends campaign which is encouraging individuals and businesses to become a Dementia Friend by watching a short video online or attend a face-to-face information session, to increase their understanding and use this to help people with dementia in their communities.
The campaign aims to create a network of one million Dementia Friends across England by 2015. As part of the campaign, adverts are now appearing on TV, online and outdoors.
To support the campaign locally, Havering Council and the local Clinical Commissioning Group ran a number of information sessions during national Dementia Awareness Week. Sessions are around 45 minutes long and after attending one, you become a Dementia Friend, learning to support people living in the community with dementia, whether a little extra patience for a stranger, or visiting a relative who may have forgotten who you are, but who benefits hugely from your visits.
We would like to continue to encourage as many individuals as possible to get involved and attend a session, or view the online video through which you also become a Dementia Friend.
To find out more, as well as to register for a local information session, visitwww.dementiafriends.org.uk
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