The 4RDA Blog

June 2026 - The Busy Times Have Continued Through This Month

1/7/2026

• In Ivybridge, I carried out some more dementia friendly premises assessments: One of the Ivybridge Town Council Offices (02/06/26) and one of the Watermark (This was done over two dates i.e. 08/06/26 and 15/06/26 due to the size of the building) with Councillor Crystal Cao. As always, I will be typing up reports for these with recommendations.

• I also re-visited some of the businesses in the town to offer them the choice of two initial dates for their staff to attend a dementia awareness session-the first one of which was held on 29/06/26.

• I attended a parish council meeting in South Brent (15/06/26) and gave a presentation about how they could continue building on the work they have already carried out, to become a dementia friendly parish. They have a provisional plan in place but will be discussing this further at a future meeting.

• I attended an Erme and Yealm Caring Alliance meeting (24/06/26) and gave an update on the work of both Four Rivers (4RDA) and Dementia Friendly Parishes Around the Yealm (DFPY).

• I continued co-facilitating the fortnightly carer’s group at Tumbly Hill Wellbeing Hub in Kingsbridge (02/06/26 and16/06/26) with Suzi Garrod (CEO and Dementia and Palliative Care Lead).

A few other things in the pipeline are:

• I will continue visiting businesses in Ivybridge with Cllr Crystal Cao (This will be an ongoing piece of work) and I will be delivering another dementia awareness session which is open for any businesses to attend (13/07/26). I have also been asked by three businesses in the town to deliver a dedicated session for their staff teams- One of these is booked for (05/08/26) and I am in the process of arranging dates for the other two.

• The work supporting Tumbly Hill, Kingsbridge will continue.

• Alongside DFPY colleagues, I will be meeting with a delegation of students and their lecturers from Nanfang University in China (28/07/26) as part of a summer school in partnership with the University of Plymouth, to talk about the work of 4RDA and DFPY.

• When time allows, I will continue with writing dementia friendly information guides for different sectors -Currently, this includes doing more work on the mini-guide for funeral directors.

Nanfang College, Guangzhou and University of Plymouth Sign MoU to Strengthen Collaboration