Dress to Remember - Reimagining Dementia Care Thursday 8th October 11.30am-1.30pm Brent Civic Centre

  

The event will feature:

• A short documentary sharing theproject's experiences and findings
• Interactive discussion exploring dementia care and quality of life
• Opportunities to share ideas and ways forward

 

Celebrate another year of Dress to Remember

 

Come and celebrate the people, stories and experiences at the heart of Dress to Remember. This documentary screening and reflective event will provide an opportunity to hear from those directly involved in the project, and reflect on how community, creativity and collaboration can help reimagine dementia care going forward in service provision – seeing the person, not the diagnosis.

 

Working with two of Brent’s community groups, the project has reimagined familiar experiences including yoga, storytelling, fashion, nature walks, museum and cultural visits. These activities have created opportunities for participation, connection and inclusion. At its heart is intergenerational connections, bringing elders and young people together to share stories, experiences and skills, and learn from one another.

 

A Year of Activities and Experiences

 

This special event will showcase some of the 17 workshops and activities delivered since September 2025, highlighting the experiences, conversations and connections created throughout the project.

The journey builds on the first Dress to Remember Discussion Forum, held at Brent Civic Centre in February 2026 and chaired by Dr John Licorish. The forum brought together voices from health, education, the arts and the community to consider dementia, health inequalities and the importance of community partnerships.

 

Since the forum, the project has taken these discussions into the community, putting ideas about inclusion and participation into practice. Through the workshops and activities, we have explored how familiar experiences can be adapted to help people living with dementia take part in ways that are respectful, enjoyable and meaningful. The activities have also helped build relationships between elders, young people, community organisations and professionals, showing how collaboration can turn discussion into action.

 

Documentary Screening

 

The event will also feature the premiere of Dress to Remember: Reimagining Dementia Care, a 20-minute documentary written and produced by Lorna Holder and edited by Katie Leyden, an NTU London Content graduate. The film takes us on a year-long journey alongside elders living with dementia in Brent, capturing moments of creativity, resilience, joy and human connection across a series of workshops. Through their stories and experiences, it challenges perceptions of dementia and reveals the person beyond the diagnosis. A strong intergenerational thread sees young people working both in front of and behind the camera, bringing their energy, curiosity and creativity to the project.

 

The documentary draws on perspectives from health, education, the arts and the community. It features a dramatic performance by Marsha Millar and reflections on memory and identity from Joseph Marcell. The film explores how culture, creativity and community can help reimagine dementia care, while celebrating memory, dignity and belonging.

 

FREE TICKETS 

The Memory Lounge, for people with Dementia and their carers, launches on June 11th at Preston Community Library

The Memory Lounge launches at Preston Community Library on Monday June 11th with special guests The Wrinklers plus talks, information and refreshments.

This is the only group in the area offering a three pronged approach to helping those in the area who are a) concerned about their memory, b) are a carer, and c) affected by Dementia.

The Community Library us on Carlton Avenue East, just off Preston Road, opposite the Preston pub. Nearest station Preston Road (Metropolitan line).

Understanding Dementia, workshop for carers, May 25th

Knitters needed to help dementia patients

Brent Big Health Debate Meetings in October

From Brent NHS Clinical Commissioning Group

Local Commissioing Intentions Followup Meetings

As places are limited please can you contact Sandra Sam-Yorke at brentccg.engagement@nhs.net  8900 5376 to register as soon as possible. Also you can review and comment on our draft commissioning intentions using our online survey HERE

Topic	Locality	Date	Venue	Lead
Integration of health and social care	Wembley	16-Oct, 3-5pm	WCHC Boardroom,   116 Chaplin Road, Wembley, HA0 4UZ	Sean Girty
Community services	Willesden	22-Oct 2-4pm	Willesden Centre for Health & Care Robson Avenue, Willesden Green, NW10 3RY	Isha Coombes
Mental Health Community Action on Dementia	Kilburn	23 Oct, 12-5pm	Clayton Crown Hotel   142-152 Cricklewood Broadway, NW2 3ED	Brent Council & CCG
Planned care	Kilburn	23-Oct, 1-3pm	St Anne’s Church - 125 Salusbury Road, West Kilburn, NW6 6RG	Huw Wilson
Mental Health Post-traumatic stress disorder	Harness	27-Oct, 11:30-1pm	Brent Mind The Design Works Park Parade, Harlesden,NW10 4HT	Brent Mind
Mental Health Brent User Group	Wembley	29-Oct,  3-5.30pm or 5-7.30pm	Patidar Centre 22 London Rd, Wembley, Middlesex HA9 7EX	Brent User Group

The positives and negatives of public health in Brent

Tomorrow's  Brent Health and Wellbeing Board will be discussing an important report on public health and the issues facing the borough in the future. The full report is available HERE

For each issue the report goes into details of some of the initiatives and projects that address the problem so here I will print some of the tables and graphs to stimulate interest.

Brent actually has healthier statistics than some of the areas with equal levels of deprivation but there are considerable differences between different parts of Brent.

The causes of premature deaths:

Differences in age expectancy in wards within the borough:

Increases in rates of dementia are a long-term issue:

As are rates of diabetes:

One area of success has been the reduction in teenage pregnancies:

The figures on child health indicate health problems building up for the future. I have been keen to persuade the Council to increase school nurse provision to address these issues and procurement is in process

Obesity of Year 6 child (11 year olds)

As they go into Year 7 at secondary schools the pupils are likely to use takeways:

To inform the Council’s planning policies, the Council public health team undertook a survey of secondary school students to explore associations between the presence of fast food takeaways close to the school and students’ use of takeaways and general food knowledge. In the seven schools that participated, all year 7 and year 10 students were surveyed. Nearly two and a half thousand students responded resulting in a unique insight into student behaviour. Students who attended schools less than 400m from a takeaway ate more takeaways at lunch, on the journey home from school and at home for their evening meal with their family.

The survey supports the policy of a buffer zone around schools which the Council is now implementing.

Dental health is a particular issue in Brent:

Some excellent preventative work is taking places from the Chalkhill Wellbeing project which ends in March 2015 unless further funding is found. I will return to this in some detail in the future.

Why I support assisted dying

I joined Dignity in Dying shortly after the death of my mother. I had shared care for her in her final years with my siblings and had watched her descend into vascular dementia, bedridden and often terrified.

Commentary has often focused on pain, but the nightmarish world of mum's dementia was mental torture: searching for lost crying babies under the bed, imagining there was a stranger in her bed, asking me to chase horses out of her room when Black Beauty was on the television, claiming she was being poisoned by carers, violently fighting the carers as they tried to wash and change her.

She cried out in pain when her almost fleshless body was  lifted in a hoist, spat out her medication and eventually pushed food and liquid away.

Clutching my hand she said, 'Why is it taking so long (to die)? Can't you help me?'

Earlier she had confided that she wished she 'hadn't woken up' after fall which had left her unconcious. Instead she had to endure a further two years when her mental and physical world shrank so that she could neither control her mind nor her body.

Despite the care of professionals and families, that period was certainly 'undignified' to say the least. Thankfully, she had signed a 'do not rescuscitate' form in the presence of a doctor during a lucid spell and her final two days were peaceful as pneumonia took hold.

We were able to play music and read her favourite poetry as we held her hand in the last hours.

However a peaceful death did not make up for two years of a living death and I wish that we had been able to let her die in her own way earlier. I feel guily about all the times I cajoled her into eating or sucking water from a wet sponge when she appeared to be doing it to please me, rather than because it was what she wanted. Joining Dignity was something I could for others in mum's position

I recognise that the issue is complex and it is not even clear that my mother's case would meet the criteria in the Bill.

I am aware of the concerns of some disability campaigners LINK about passing such a law in a period of austerity when the disabled are under attack and losing their benefits. I recognise worries about the elderly requesting assisted dying so as 'not to be a burden' and issues around unscrupulous relatives with their eyes on a legacy.

However, I am persuaded that there could be sufficient safeguards to ensure that these concerns are addressed LINK

Tomorrow the House of Lords will be voting on Lord Falconer's Bill. The sole Green Party peer, Jenny Jones, will not be present as she has a long-standing engagement to attend a 100th birthday party, but she has expressed support for the measure. In response to requests on her attitude to the Bill she said:

As a representative of the Green Party, this is an issue I take an interest in. I believe that people deserve choice, comfort and dignity in death, and would welcome any changes in law that would enable that.