Carers discover a vintage hairdryer © Pete Carr
This Sunday, 11 September marks National Dementia Carers’ Day, which recognises the important contribution family and informal carers make by caring for people living with dementia.
To mark the occasion, National Museums Liverpool has been funded by the Department of Health to launch free dementia workshops for family carers, partnering with museums across the country.
House of Memories dementia awareness for family carers workshops build on the success of our award-winning House of Memories dementia awareness programme, which has been running at the Museum of Liverpool since 2012.
We’ve developed half-day workshops specially for families, volunteers and close friends of those living with dementia, to provide help with dementia care through our unique and innovative cultural resources. It’s an opportunity for people who provide support to people living with dementia to share their experiences, and we hope that meeting like-minded people in a friendly space will help people to feel reassured and supported.
We’ll give an introduction to dementia through video stories based on real-life to understand the experience of living with dementia and being a carer. There’ll be an opportunity to try out our award-winning My House of Memories app, take part in dementia-friendly museum activities and we’ll explain how our resources and activities can help.
Carers look at reminiscence objects © Beth Walsh
We’re really looking forward to taking our dementia workshops on the road with our partners – the British Museum, New Walk Museum and Art Gallery and Salford Museum and Art Gallery. We’re excited to show carers all over the country how our partners’ fantastic resources can help unlock memories, improve communication and understanding, and enrich the lives of those living with dementia.
Carol Rogers, Executive Director of Education and Visitors tells us more:
“We have trained more than 10,000 carers across the UK, setting up our first workshops for family carers in Liverpool last year, to provide them with new ideas and perspectives on caring for their loved ones. Person-centred care is at the heart of our workshops, and acknowledges that an individual’s personal history and memory is of huge importance.
The workshops will take place twice-daily from 9:30am – 12:30pm and 1:30 – 4:30pm at:
New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester, 2 November 2016
Salford Museum and Art Gallery, 14 November 2016
Museum of Liverpool, 25 November 2016
British Museum, 1 December 2016
Book your free place by emailing learning@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk or calling 0151 478 4240.
Carol continues: “We know that dementia is an emotional subject to talk about, particularly if it affects a person you love. When you’re caring for someone on a daily basis, it can be hard to see past the every day tasks. We have received some incredible feedback from previous workshops, and we hope people will take the opportunity to join us so we can steer them in a positive direction, and help improve the lives of those they care for who are living with dementia.”