Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- About the Author
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 What is Dementia?
- 2 Supporting People Living with Dementia and their Carers
- 3 Library Design and Environment
- 4 Reading and Dementia
- 5 Health, Social and Arts Activities
- 6 Digital and Online Provision
- 7 Partnership Working
- 8 Communications and Marketing
- 9 Evaluation and Service Development
- 10 Future Trends
- Summary: ten actions for dementia-friendly libraries
- References
- Annotated Bibliography
- Index
7 - Partnership Working
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- About the Author
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 What is Dementia?
- 2 Supporting People Living with Dementia and their Carers
- 3 Library Design and Environment
- 4 Reading and Dementia
- 5 Health, Social and Arts Activities
- 6 Digital and Online Provision
- 7 Partnership Working
- 8 Communications and Marketing
- 9 Evaluation and Service Development
- 10 Future Trends
- Summary: ten actions for dementia-friendly libraries
- References
- Annotated Bibliography
- Index
Summary
… it's always an uphill challenge to get to the right people.
(Heather Rodenhurst, Shropshire Libraries, UK, in conversation with author)Partnership working is a crucial aspect of the provision of library services for people with dementia and their carers. Partner organisations, including care homes, day centres, adult social care, arts organisations, community groups and dementia research organisations, can provide valuable guidance and expertise, as well as practical support and even the development of codelivered services. This can be achieved through both formal strategic partnerships and more ad hoc collaborations. Conversations with potential partners can help to develop library-based activities, but can also lead to the establishment of outreach services to allow libraries to reach people with dementia and their carers in a range of settings. The case studies in Chapters 4 and 5 included examples of partnerships to deliver both library-based and outreach initiatives, but this chapter looks more explicitly at the mechanisms behind the delivery of these types of services – how partnerships are established and maintained – rather than at the services themselves in detail.
Heather Rodenhurst from Shropshire Libraries in the UK describes the importance of both established and more informal, or developing, partnerships to spread the word about the memory bags service they offer (described in Chapter 4):
The library service is a member of the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Dementia Action Alliance. So that's a really good vehicle for us; when the group meets every other month, I can always give them an update. But a lot of it is also through word of mouth. A local care home had heard about the project and wanted to donate a small sum of money, so they funded two of the memory bags. It was great to have that link with them. They come in, they borrow them and then you’ve got that way of passing the information on to families as well. And a big local care company asked me to go into their offices to train their carers who provide a creative intervention for people at home with dementia. They might be doing a four-hour visit to somebody with dementia, so to find that there are resources that can help that they can get from the library was a revelation to them. It's just getting the word out there, isn't it really?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Supporting People to Live Well with DementiaA Guide for Library Services, pp. 111 - 120Publisher: FacetPrint publication year: 2023