The Four Rivers Dementia Alliance is a group of town and parish councils in South West Devon, and other interested organisations working together, to promote dementia friendly communities.
The Parish Councils are Bickleigh, Shaugh Prior, Cornwood, Sparkwell, Harford, South Brent, Rattery, Diptford, North Huish, Ringmore, Ugborough, Modbury, Kingston, Ermington, Yealmpton, Brixton, Holbeton, Newton & Noss, Wembury, including Ivybridge Town Council.
September - More Tasks In Hand And Spreading The Word
30/9/2025
September has been a bit quieter in terms of meetings but still lots of things being worked on!
• I submitted an article about the work of Four Rivers and Dementia Friendly Parishes Around the Yealm to Bigbury and Ringmore News which was for their October/November edition. However, the editor advised that due to a huge amount of local events for that issue, they were unable to include the article but would put it in the next one (December/January).
• The same article was submitted to the Diptford and North Huish Parish News and has been printed in their September issue.
• I attended a Four Rivers meeting (Which was rescheduled from 03/09/25 to 15/09/25) to update on the work of both Four Rivers and Dementia Friendly Parishes Around the Yealm. Resulting from that, a care home provider manager asked for some information/support re: improving their dementia services. I am currently waiting to hear back re: a suitable meeting date for this.
• I attended an Erme and Yealm Caring Alliance meeting (17/09/25) to update on the work of both the Four Rivers and Dementia Friendly Parishes Around the Yealm.
• I met with Liz Hitchins, Four Rivers Chair and Ian Sherriff BEM, Academic Partnership Lead for Dementia, University of Plymouth (10/09/25) to plan the content of the workshop on dementia friendly communities that we will be delivering at the Devon Association of Local Councils (DALC) AGM (01/10/25). I also created slides for my part of the presentation.
• After attending the Alzheimer’s Society essential content Dementia Friends update session back in August, I also discovered that there had been updates to the resources to be used with children and young people. To reflect these changes, I had to make a few amendments to the final edit of the “working towards becoming dementia friendly” information pack I drafted for schools. It is now ready to go to print.
• I continued mapping community resources and attractions that could be approached re: becoming dementia friendly across the Four Rivers catchment area. As the area is a large one, this will be an ongoing piece of research for a while.
A few other things in the pipeline are:
• I will be meeting with Liz Hitchins and Katie Chaplin, Teignbridge CVS (06/10/25) to discuss dementia being a focus of the next South Hams District Caring Alliance meeting (28/10/25).
• I will be meeting with Melanie Ford, Older Person’s Community Builder, (06/10/25) to discuss how to make spaces and groups dementia friendly.
• I am booked to attend a parish council meeting in Modbury (07/10/25) to talk about the work of the Four Rivers Dementia Alliance and the support available to become a dementia friendly parish council and village.
• I will be attending the next South Hams Dementia Forum meeting (15/10/25) where I will be speaking about my role within Four Rivers Dementia Alliance and how the parishes are starting to work on becoming dementia friendly, with support.
• I am booked to attend a parish meeting in Harford (05/10/25) to talk about the work of 4RDA and the support available to become dementia friendly.
• I will complete the draft of the dementia friendly guide for GP practices. After that, I will begin working on one for the care sector.
