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Garden City Memory Café

Summary

The City of Melville is home to the second highest number of people living with Dementia in Western Australia. Garden City Shopping Centre collaborated with the City of Melville to create the Memory Café.

Inspired by Melville couple, Keith and Wendy Glance, the Memory Café is Perth’s first monthly social gathering specifically for people living with dementia.

The Memory Café is a partnership between the City of Melville, Garden City AMP and Alzheimer’s WA and is supported by volunteers from Attitudinal Healing WA. It aims to provide a safe, supportive and inclusive environment for people living with dementia and their carers where they can socialise over a nice cuppa, connect through sharing their experiences and rediscovering memories. The café is located in a large shopping centre, where the staff  have undertaken training to make them feel welcome and at ease.

A nurturing network such as this is vital for the ongoing wellbeing of those living with dementia, as the task of communicating becomes more difficult and further symptoms progress.

Since the first Memory Café in September 2016, there have been 13 other Memory Cafés set up by various cafés and shopping centres within Western Australia.

Website: https://www.melvillecity.com.au/our-community/age-friendly-melville/living-well-with-dementia#garden

Key facts

Main target group: Older people with chronic health conditions or disability

Sector(s): Other

Desired outcome for older people:
Build and maintain relationships

Contact details

Name: Deena Lazzari

Email address: Naomi.Christensen@melville.wa.gov.au

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Local authorities

Others involved in the project:
  • Local authorities
  • Older People’s Association
  • Social or health care provider
  • Volunteers

Older people’s involvement: Older people were involved in the age-friendly practice at multiple or all stages

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: Yes

Was the impact positive or negative:
Positive

Looking back

Challenges:
Some of the challenges faced were when the first Memory Café was set up it was the only one in the state, numbers were up at 40-ish, this number has decreased due to 13 other memory cafes starting up across the state. These 13 cafés were established based on the success of the Melville model. As people’s dementia progresses we have noticed that they are not longer able to attend in the last two years therefore there is a need for continuous advertising and promoting to maintain numbers and success of the Memory Café.