Monmouthshire Museums Service
Intergenerational memory cafes
Across the whole of the UK, the number of people living with dementia is increasing. Monmouthshire Museums Service has been looking for new ways to include people living with dementia in its programmes, building upon our successful volunteer-run reminiscence programme.
When we were approached by our local secondary school to help deliver the Welsh Baccalaureate Community Volunteering Challenge, it seemed an ideal opportunity to create a project that brought young people and people living with dementia together: intergenerational memory cafes.
The programme is an exceptional template for other inter-generational projects to follow and will be used as an example of such to other Dementia Friends groups throughout the UK.
Our first cohort of 10 young people were trained to use handling objects as conversation triggers and provided with Dementia Friends awareness sessions.
The students worked together with museum staff to research and organise a series of two-hour themed memory cafes that included music, handling objects, costume and afternoon tea.
Makes those living with dementia feel human again.
The cafes have been well attended and received, and have also benefited the students, some of whom received a young volunteers award and stayed on to mentor the next cohort.
The Memory Café project has also resulted in an expansion of our programming for people living with dementia, including creative workshops and partnerships with our local health authority.
Are we making a difference? We hope so.