Agenda item

A verbal update will be presented to the Board on the outcomes from the Brent Dementia Action Alliance workshop and Brent Children’s Trust workshop.

Danny Maher (Chair, Community Action on Dementia – Brent (CAD-Brent)) provided an update to the meeting on the progress achieved regarding the development of CAD–Brent, following the related workshop held at the meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board in November 2014. Members of the board were reminded that CAD–Brent had been established to challenge and empower people from local communities, businesses, voluntary sector organisations and the council to support people with dementia; it would act as a central point for information and support and was not intended to be a service provider. 

Outlining some of the successes achieved, Danny Maher reported that CAD–Brent was now a registered charity and this broadened the range of funding opportunities available to the organisation. Work had begun to link CAD–Brent to local business networks, with an initial meeting resulting in a local business agreeing to design a logo for the organisation free of charge. One aim of working with local businesses was to help people with dementia have positive shopping experiences by championing measures such as slow payment lanes and staff awareness training. Ethnographic research was shortly due to commence and this would encompass the training of twenty people in ethnographic research techniques. These individuals would be representative of Brent’s diverse community and would be a valuable resource, enabling additional research to be conducted in Brent’s BAME and faith communities. It was acknowledged that issues of awareness and willingness to talk about dementia could affect support offered to those with the condition in some BAME or faith communities. Attendance at a recent meeting of the Multi Faith Forum had resulted in some very positive outcomes including the intention to develop dementia champions across faith groups.

Danny Maher further advised that CAD-Brent was now represented on the Brent Clinical Commissioning Group Dementia Steering Group. This group took a primarily clinical view of supporting people with dementia and for this reason, CAD-Brent’s efforts to highlight the importance of the community perspective in this work had been well received. CAD-Brent was also working with Brent Council’s Geographical Information System to plot incidences of diagnoses of dementia against service provision to identify areas of need. Moving forward it was intended to obtain funding to support a CAD-Brent Development worker to further assist the charity in achieving its aims.

The board discussed the progress achieved in the development of CAD-Brent and thanked Danny Maher for his contribution to the meeting.  Danny Maher noted the importance of the role of the HWB in the achievements made. Fiona Kivett (Senior Policy Officer, Brent Council) advised that a letter providing an update on some of the key projects underway had been sent to those who had attended the original workshop; CAD-Brent would facilitate further feedback. Dr Ethie Kong (Chair, Brent Clinical Commissioning Group) noted that the CCG had undertaken significant data cleansing, as a result of which the prevalence of dementia diagnoses had increased, and suggested that this information could be used to assist with identifying hotspots of service need.

Gail Tolley (Strategic Director, Children and Young People) then provided an update on the health and wellbeing for under 5s workshop held at the previous meeting of the board. Three key actions had been identified as a result of the feedback from the workshop; developing a role for parent champions; establishing an early years voluntary sector network; and, driving forward improvements for health and wellbeing for under 5s via a children’s centres partnership. Work was already underway to implement these actions. The Early Years Public Health Officer was currently working with the Maternity and Child Health Partnership Group to extend the existing and successful Parent Champion model; a mapping exercise was underway to identify community voluntary groups that offered early years services; and, the Head of Early Years and Family Support was leading on embedding the requirement for driving forward improvements for health and wellbeing in under 5s in the tender for the Children’s Centres Partnership.

RESOLVED:

That the progress achieved following the Community Action on Dementia workshop and the health and wellbeing for under 5s workshop be noted.