New Dementia Service Launches

New Dementia Community Support Service.

Age UK Worcester and Malvern Hills has launched a community support service to support people with dementia and their family.

Living with dementia can bring many challenges including feelings of loneliness and isolation and so the service will help people stay connected and help them to continue doing the things that they enjoy.

The service will match trained and skilled volunteers with people, to be companions, to provide regular telephone calls or visits for a friendly chat, to share an interest, an activity or to reminisce. If appropriate, the volunteers will also encourage and support their companion to attend group activities (when these re-open).

The service will also provide online activity sessions – with help from Age UK IT volunteer ambassadors who will unravel the mysteries of getting online.

Finally, it will provide a link for the whole family, to other Age UK services and to other specialist support services.

Lynne Mole, Head of Services at Age UK WMH says “Social contact is so important to all of us, the pandemic has certainly proved this.  A dementia diagnosis can exacerbate this – it can be a very isolating experience for both the person with dementia and their close family members.  This service will provide very accessible support for the whole family”.

It is a joint initiative with Age UK Bromsgrove, Redditch and Wyre Forest and supported by Herefordshire and Worcestershire CCG.