This post diagnostic resource pack came out of the delivery of the Good Life With Dementia course.
A post diagnostic course which itself was created and delivered BY people living with dementia in East Riding FOR people living with dementia in East Riding. This is the third such co-produced course over the last 12 months.
The course answered the many questions that people recently diagnosed with dementia had about their diagnosis, about the future, about the implications of it on their lives and relationships; and on their confidence and their rights to continue as valid and valued members of their neighbourhoods and communities.
We knew it would answer the questions people had because it was put together by local people with dementia sharing the key messages they wanted to give to people going through diagnosis, drawing on their own experience having gone through that same local process. Who better to learn from than those who have been there and got the T-shirt. The creators and ‘tutors’ on this course had all ‘graduated from earlier Good Life courses and had stayed on as members of the East Riders peer group.
As well as key important local information and numbers to contact gathered from the course, it contains a powerful ‘manifesto’ of what local people with dementia expect and demand; a list of what was learnt on the course; and the invaluable ‘must read’ insight into ‘what my dementia means to me’.
Local services and providers have requested this updated resource, having benefitted from sharing our outputs from earlier courses. They realise that, however well-intended, much of the information they currently provide themselves has been created by them for others – essentially a best guess.
This resource has again been created by and with people living with dementia themselves, and has been born of their real experiences. The Good Life course in East Riding has also led to the expansion of a new group of peers with dementia, who are now meeting regularly – the East Riders! Thanks to the forward-thinking collaboration from across health, social and third sector across East Riding, we hope to co-produce more Good Life courses – and consequently more groups of peers who can form a growing network of active engaged people with dementia across the region.
