Welcome to the Four Rivers Dementia Alliance - an information hub

March 2026 - March Has Been A Full And Varied Month!

6/4/2026

• Across the month, I have continued visiting businesses in Ivybridge with Councillor Crystal Cao (Ivybridge Town Council) to make them aware of the work being done to make Ivybridge a dementia friendly community, leaving them the introductory letter and revisiting some of them to offer support to become dementia friendly. We will continue to do this until we have visited all of the businesses.

• I met with an independent speech and language therapist (10/03/26) to discuss the work of both 4RDA and Dementia Friendly Parishes Around the Yealm.

• I attended Modbury Parish Council’s Community Engagement Committee meeting (10/03/26) to discuss ways of starting to work on making Modbury more dementia friendly. It was agreed that this would start with a village signage audit.

• I gave a talk about the work of 4RDA and Dementia Friendly Parishes Around the Yealm at a social evening for staff and drivers of the Ivybridge and District Community Transport Association (18/03/26).

• I attended the Erme & Yealm Caring Alliance meeting (18/03/26) and gave an update on the work of 4RDA and Dementia Friendly Parishes Around the Yealm.

• I attended the UK Dementia & Palliative Care Conference (24/03/26) at Buckfast Abbey which was a great day, packed with lots of useful information.

• I met with Suzi Garrod (Chief Executive and Dementia and Palliative Care Lead, Tumbly Hill Wellbeing Hub in Kingsbridge) to discuss and plan the first session of their forthcoming carer’s support group that I will be co-facilitating with her for a few months (25/03/26).

• Copies of the dementia friendly guide I wrote for GP practices have now been printed.

A few other things in the pipeline are:

• I will be starting to co-facilitate the carer’s support group with Suzi Garrod at Tumbly Hill Wellbeing Hub in Kingsbridge (07/04/26). This will be fortnightly and I will be supporting for the first six months.

• I will continue visiting businesses in Ivybridge with Cllr Crystal Cao (This will be an ongoing piece of work for a while) and starting to plan the first awareness sessions, dementia friendly premises assessments to be offered, soon.

• I will be attending the next South Hams Dementia Forum meeting (22/04/26) and will give an update about the work of both 4RDA and Dementia Friendly Parishes around the Yealm.

• I will conduct a dementia friendly signage audit in Modbury (27/04/26) with some members of the community engagement committee.

• I will be attending the 4RDA AGM (28/04/26) at Ivybridge Rugby Club and will report on what I have been working on over the past year.