The 4RDA Blog
Progress to Date with Parish and Town Councils
28/1/2025
Just to keep you up to date with everything that is happening with my new role. We are still preparing the ground work but interest in what we are trying to achieve is growing from communicating with the parish councils in the 4RDA area.• Attended Rattery PC meeting (14/01/25) and agreed to follow up after they have considered it at their February meeting.
• Other parish council meetings booked:
Shaugh Prior (05/02/25)
Ugborough (12/02/25)
Ringmore (18/02/25)
Bickleigh (27/02/25 TBC)
Kingston (20/03/25)
Harford (07/05/23)
• Ivybridge -I have been invited to attend their annual town meeting on 17/03/25 to talk to residents and councillors about how the town can improve it’s work towards being dementia friendly.
• Modbury-I am waiting to hear back from the chair re: a date to attend a meeting of the dementia friendly working group they are planning.
• South Brent- I have previously supported Susanne Archard and Cllr Guy Pannell with a walk round of the village and advice on dementia friendly signage which a neighbourhood officer has now agreed and will be working on the design of. Currently awaiting a date for a meeting with Susanne to discuss lending some more support to South Brent to become dementia friendly.
• I have started researching community groups, businesses, schools, churches and other organisations to approach to offer support to become dementia friendly in the various parish areas.
• In a similar vein to the information pack for parish councils, I plan to work on developing some guides for other organisations wanting to work towards becoming dementia friendly e.g. retailers, churches, community groups, GP surgeries, schools etc and possibly develop window stickers/certificates for them.
Starting the Role of Community Liaison and Support Lead
1/1/2025
In the first few weeks as Community Support and Liaison Lead, I have been busy working on a few "building blocks" to progress forward from. This has included developing an information pack for parish and town councils which outlines what 4RDA does, what inclusive rural dementia friendly communities are, why being dementia friendly is important, the benefits to parish councils and communities of joining 4RDA and a suggested action plan to work through. Additionally, I have worked on a draft policy (lone working) and it's accompanying risk assessment.
I have also contacted a number of the parish councils to request to speak at a council meeting about the work of 4RDA and to encourage them to get involved. I currently have a few arranged in the next few weeks and I will be leaving the information pack with each of the parish councils to help support them.
Other tasks I have undertaken during this period as the representative of 4RDA has been to attend an initial meeting to discuss a Dementia Alliance website with a variety of other professionals working across Devon as part of the work towards a fledgling Devon Dementia strategy. This took place on 26/11/24.
I also attended the District-Wide Caring Alliance meeting and gave an update on the current project work being undertaken by 4RDA. this took place on 03/12/2024.
