Accord Equality & Fairness Report 2020
Case study
Pathways4Life
Dementia Support Worker
Accords Care and Support services for older people with Dementia
from BAME communities are far reaching, from their extra care
services specifically aimed at supporting older BAME communities
in Birmingham, to their innovative Dementia Centres of Excellence
where Accord supports older people with dementia in Staffordshire
and Coventry. The aim is to provide a range of housing and care
options that meet the different needs of their multicultural, multiethnic
customers, all of which are underpinned by a consistent quality
standard. This has resulted in Accord establishing a dedicated Older
People’s Offer working group to ensure housing and care work more
collaboratively to improve outcomes for older people by addressing
issues such as building design, accessibility, dementia and workforce
training and skills.
The Accord Way - Open-Minded
In addition to the work being done in accommodation-based services
Accord also has a dedicated support worker role in Walsall. The
Dementia Support Worker role was established in 2012 in response
to the low numbers of people accessing services from specific
communities, this included older people from BAME communities,
adults with learning disabilities and those from traveller communities.
The role aims to increase community awareness of dementia, improve
access to information and signposting and increase the numbers of
people accessing assessment and ultimately being diagnosed with
dementia.
The role has been hugely successful and in-reaches into a variety of
settings including the wider community, care settings and places of
worship. The awareness sessions have been particularly effective
where a healthy body, healthy mind approach has been adopted using
both Accord’s support workers and volunteers to ensure that sessions
are available in a range of languages including Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi,
and Gujarati. Through these sessions they have been able to access
individuals who do not engage with traditional care services. Since the
scheme was introduced hundreds of people with dementia have been
supported to access appropriate assessment and diagnosis in addition
to improving wider community awareness and tackling stigmas
associated with dementia. We have had a special YouTube video
commissioned on this subject watch here
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