In the lead-up to Election 2023 in October, we’re posting a series of blogs written by our members, tied together with threads of hope and optimism for how Aotearoa might change in the near future. We want to highlight what our members are seeing out there in their communities, and also suggest innovative solutions for positive systemic and individual change.

In this, our second blog of the series, Claire Booth (Wesley Community Action) writes about how her organisation’s journey to become a Dementia Friendly organisation has led to better experiences for staff and the people they work with to support. With our ageing population leading to an expected increase in people living with dementia mate wareware, completing this accessible and relatively low-cost training would be a positive step for individuals and organisations to best support their whānau and communities.

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Te Whatu Ora was overwhelmed with registrations of interest from NGO providers for a share of the $12 million funding boost to support people living with dementia mate wareware which was announced in the 2022 budget. 

The funding, which is being implemented over four years, prioritises Māori, Pacific peoples, rural communities, and those diagnosed with young onset dementia – all groups that desperately need better support.  

Both Alzheimers New Zealand and the New Zealand Dementia Foundation – who together launched the Dementia Mate Wareware Action Plan in 2020 – have welcomed the additional funding. But as they said when it was announced last year, it’s just the beginning.    

I couldn’t agree more. As manager of Te Waka Haumaru, Wesley Community Action’s older persons team, I’m well aware of the need to do more to meet the needs of our ageing population. At present around 70,000 New Zealanders are living with dementia mate wareware. That is predicted to increase to 170,000 by 2040. As with other health indicators in New Zealand, Māori and Pacific whānau are proportionately more affected.   

It’s not a theoretical thing that will happen sometime in the future – it’s happening right now, and as a nation we’re ill-equipped to deal with it.  

My team supports around 400 older people a year through two contracts – elder abuse response and supported independent living – as well as a programme we have developed called Ageing Well. This provides new ways for older people to maintain their wellbeing while living independently.  

Through this mahi we see first-hand how living with dementia mate wareware increases older people’s vulnerability to abuse, and makes living alone increasingly challenging. We also see that dementia disproportionately affects many of the communities we work with – vulnerable people of all ages living in poverty. They are more likely to develop dementia – and less likely to get access to appropriate support services and resources. 

Like most organisations working with vulnerable older people, we are engaged in a constant struggle to get adequate funding. But it’s not all bad news. One positive, low-cost step we’ve taken to help focus attention on dementia is to become a dementia-friendly organisation, an accreditation awarded by Alzheimers New Zealand.   

The accreditation process has helped raise awareness of dementia both among our kaimahi (staff) and the people we work with, many of whom have a whānau member living with dementia matewareware, or who have sadly passed away with dementia mate wareware. Through the process, kaimahi realised that cognitive impairment isn’t just an issue for their colleagues in Te Waka Haumaru, it can affect people they interact with through things such as our community pantry or fruit and vege co-op. 

To gain accreditation all kaimahi at Wesley Community Action became an Alzheimers New Zealand Dementia Friend.  They supplement this with an annual refresher training about awareness and support for people living with a dementia. Several colleagues have told me that what they have learned through this process has been really useful when a whānau member went on to develop dementia and the theory became reality.  

On a practical level, we reviewed our community-facing office sites to make sure they are dementia friendly – with good signage, easy access, good acoustics and / or access to quiet spaces. We also ensured that our human resources policies includes support for kaimahi who get a diagnosis, or who are caring for someone in their whānau who has a dementia.  For one colleague, this commitment made her feel even more supported when she found herself caring for a mother with dementia. 

During the accreditation process the auditors from Alzheimers New Zealand noted how  committed our kaimahi are to working in a respectful, inclusive, kind and compassionate way – all of which are essential to being dementia friendly. Those values sit at the heart of the Te Ara Wēteri / The Wesley Way, the framework that guides how our kaimahi interact with each other and those they work alongside. 

Becoming a dementia friendly organisation hasn’t solved our funding problems but it has helped kaimahi to feel more confident about engaging well with people living with dementia and to understand the signs that someone may be becoming unwell. And it’s helped reassure them that they will be supported by our organisation if they are caring for someone living with dementia.