What is a dementia-friendly community?

People with dementia and their carers talk about the everyday challenges they face in living well with dementia. … Although help from health and care services is vitally important, making it possible for people affected by dementia to live well will require help from people and organisations across society.

Dementia Friendly Communities is a programme which facilitates the creation of dementia-friendly communities across the UK. Everyone, from governments and health boards to the local corner shop and hairdresser, share part of the responsibility for ensuring that people with dementia feel understood, valued and able to contribute to their community.

What is a dementia-friendly community?

We need to create more communities and businesses that are dementia friendly so that people affected by dementia feel understood and included, and that they can confidently contribute to community life.

Everyone, from governments and health boards, to the local corner shop and hairdresser, have a responsibilty to make sure people with dementia feel active, engaged and valued.

We need sustained national leadership and grassroots action on dementia to create a dementia-friendly Britain. At Alzheimer’s Society, we’ve set up a defined process for communities and businesses to gain recognition for their work in becoming dementia friendly.

How to become a recognised dementia-friendly community

Recognition processes enables communities to be publicly recognised for their work towards becoming dementia-friendly. It was built around seven criteria. These criteria were developed around what is important to people affected by dementia and their carers, and consists of an online development programme and annual reporting requirements.

Look at the documents for the seven criterias to learn more about what is expected of communities registering for recognition

Dementia Friendly Business Pilot

As well as looking at how people with dementia live in their local communities, we’re leading work on helping businesses support dementia friendly communities. Piloted by industry leaders including British Gas and Sainsbury’s, this work will define and implement how employers can best support their employees, customers or clients who are living with dementia. This is providing the best practice examples, with the view to rolling out a framework for achieving this on a national level.