I started working with adults with memory issues in 2016 and it was around that time I noticed changes in my Great Nan Rose. She had always been forgetful and other family members didn't notice the subtle changes but I did. It started with little things like getting people's names wrong. This wasn't uncommon as I come from a large family and there are a lot of names to remember;
Since 2015 Touchstone has been working hard to be a Dementia Friendly organisation. Through the leadership of the Dementia Champions group awareness around Dementia including some practical actions as enabled Touchstone to become more of a dementia friendly organisation. One of the key aims of the Dementia Champions is to ensure there is a consistent approach across all our sites and services. For example a Dementia Friendly Environmental Audit has
Touchstone is committed to becoming Dementia friendly, and in recent months we have been focusing on what changes we can make to make our sites easy for people with dementia to feel relaxed in. This has involved fitting new carpets and brightly coloured toilet seats, which can be helpful for people with dementia, as it is common for a person’s visual perception to be affected and similar coloured floors and
Touchstone, Pavilion and Ian Duhig are pleased to share their new poem ‘The Meaning of Food’. This poem was co-written by Ian Duhig and Touchstone’s Cha DaCup group, who have now ‘crossed the threshold’ to become published authors, as their poem has been featured in the recently released in ‘The Cookbook Project Sewerby Hall and Gardens’ by Ahilopalapa Rands. Ian worked with the Sikh Elder's Cha Da Cup group as
Image: Timothy Neat, The Victorian market and the city of Leeds (series) circa 1965-66. Copyright Timothy Neat. Touchstone’s BME Dementia Service has been working closely with art organisation Pavilion and sound artist Ryoko Akama to gather oral history recordings of the life stories and experiences of older people who were first generation migrant workers in textile factories in Leeds. These recordings are currently being showcased as part of Ryoko
As part of part of Touchstone’s BME Dementia Service’s on-going partnership with Pavilion, poet Ian Duhig hosted two workshops with the Cha Da Cup group who regularly attend Touchstone on Mondays to exercise, share food, meet with friends and get involved in lots of different activities. The workshops have been a fantastic celebration of food, culture and personal stories and have resulted in the group poem ‘The Meaning of Food’. We are pleased
Touchstone's BME Dementia Service has featured in Leeds Older People's Forum's Dementia Friendly Newsletter. The newsletter features two of the projects the BME Dementia Service are working on at present; the Interwoven Histories project in partnership with Pavilion, and our West Yorkshire Playhouse partnership in which we are writing a play about the lives and experiences of our Hamari Yaadain Dementia Cafe members, as part of their Every Third Minute
As part of part of Touchstone’s BME Dementia Service’s on-going partnership with Pavilion, artist Simon Warner delivered a workshop with the Cha Da Cup group who regularly attend Touchstone on Mondays to exercise, share food, meet with friends and get involved in lots of different activities. Simon’s workshop was centred on creating silhouettes, an age-old art form which first became popular in the mid 1700’s due to the work of
Hamari Yaadain - Touchstone's monthly dementia cafe for people from the South Asian community - was recently featured on the Alzheimer's Society website and in their Living With Dementia magazine. The articles author quotes Ripaljeet Kaur (Touchstone's lead worker on dementia): "Groups like this one are really important for people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. It's run in their mother tongue, so people feel comfortable. It's the only group
As part of the Interwoven Histories Art workshops, Pavilion held a film workshop with members of Touchstone’s BME Dementia Service’s Hamari Yaadain Dementia Café. Will from Pavilion brought along a projector to the group and showed Nathaniel Dorsky’s 16mm silent film Autumn (2016). Towards the end of 2015, Dorsky captured footage of the seasonal changes we see in the world around us and created this film, which explores the changing