The 4RDA Blog

October - A Flurry Of Meetings And Presentations!

27/10/2025

October has been a flurry of meetings and presentations.

• I co-delivered a workshop about dementia friendly communities with Liz Hitchins, Four Rivers Chair and Ian Sherriff BEM, Academic Partnership Lead for Dementia, University of Plymouth (01/10/25) at the Devon Association of Local Councils AGM at Exeter Racecourse. I spoke about what inclusive dementia friendly communities are, the challenges that people living in rural areas with dementia face in accessing support and the work of Dementia Friendly Parishes Around the Yealm and 4RDA in helping to meet those challenges. The workshop was received positively by all those attending.

• I met with Liz Hitchins and Katie Chaplin (Teignbridge CVS) to discuss making dementia a focus of the next South Hams District Caring Alliance meeting as several people that had attended the previous meeting, said they would like to know a bit more about dementia. I was asked to put together a presentation about how to make organisations dementia friendly.

• I met with Melanie Ford (Older Persons Community Builder) who works in Plymouth, to give her some information and ideas on making spaces and groups more dementia friendly (06/10/25).

• I attended a parish council meeting in Modbury (07/10/25) to talk about the work of 4RDA and the support available to become a dementia friendly parish council and village. The chair asked me to attend a community engagement committee meeting so that ideas for Modbury could be discussed further. Currently I am waiting to hear back from the parish council re: dates for such a meeting.

• I met up with Emma Hughes (Admiral Nurse) to help her to connect with the 4RDA again and get an update about what is going on as her workload has meant she has not been able to attend any of the meetings for a while (13/10/25).

• I attended the South Hams Dementia Forum meeting (15/10/25) and did a presentation about my role within 4RDA and how the parishes are starting to work on becoming dementia friendly, with support. Subsequent to this I have had a request from another organisation that attended; to deliver an awareness session for staff-Currently I am awaiting hearing back from them about a potential date.

• Following on from the last 4RDA meeting (15/09/25), I met with Nicholas Hill (care home provider manager) to discuss potential ways to improve dementia services across their three care homes in Ashburton, Ermington and Plymouth and I offered to support with lots of it e.g. awareness sessions for all staff (and to offer to relatives), dementia friendly premises assessments of the homes, provision of supportive signposting information, making written materials available in a dementia friendly format. I am currently waiting to hear back about how they wish to move forward with this.

A few other things in the pipeline going forward into November are:

• I will be delivering a presentation about ways to make organisations dementia friendly at the South Hams District Caring Alliance meeting in Totnes (28/10/25).

• I will be meeting with Councillor Margaret Grafton (Ermington Parish Council) to talk about a starting point for working towards making Ermington a dementia friendly parish (03/11/25).

• I am booked to attend a parish meeting in Harford (05/11/25) to talk about the work of 4RDA and the support available to become dementia friendly.

• The dementia friendly guide I have written for schools has now gone to print. The guide for retailers is currently being edited and I am working on finishing the draft of the dementia friendly guide for GP practices. After that, I will begin working on one for the care sector.