Five Bullet Friday (30 November 2018)

I had a lot to take away from this thought provoking event in Perth. One example is Liz Morton and Henry Remorey from Battersea Arts Centre who spoke about The Agency https://bit.ly/2QarJQM.

Modelled on Agenica Redes Para Juventude in Brazil, The Agency is about young people developing entrepreneurial ideas through creative workshops. There are many parallels between this work and OCN. Battersea Arts Centre have been inspired to think differently about how they work moving from a focus on ‘provider and delivery’ model to a ‘facilitator and developer’ model. Young people very much lead the work similarly to how we want involve people living with dementia to lead OCN. There was understanding that projects can no longer ‘parachute in’ anymore and that projects need to be funded for a minimum of at least 3 years to build relationships, connections and trust with communities. They spoke about ‘scratching out’ ideas to try things out and see what works. This is something OCN will continue to focus on through year two. Great audience discussion included someone speaking about the annual Goa teaching programme they deliver each year. Planned out thoroughly in advance the programme delivery is creative and responsive. It changes and adapts during the delivery. The programme at the end is often very different from the beginning. I think this applies to OCN. OCN needs to be flexible, innovative and experimental to effectively involve people, to be responsive at neighbourhood level and to enable people living with dementia and unpaid cares to lead the work. Thank you again to Angela Gray at Macrobert Arts Centre for the heads up on this event.

OCN evaluation lead Kainde led an interesting and productive session looking at the next phase of evaluation of the OCN project. This phase will involve one to one interviews with strand leads and two focus groups, one with volunteers and the other with project partners to reflect on progress of the project made to date, and will help to inform the future direction of our work. Volunteers taking part were able to share some of their own reflections on the progress of the project to date as well as their ambitions for the future. We have also developed draft interview questions for the interviews and focus groups which will take place in the New Year. Thanks to everyone who took part! If you weren’t able to take part on Wednesday and you’d like to be involved in this element of the evaluation please contact Kainde kainde.manji@stir.ac.uk

We updated our twitter handle to match the changes in project name. Our new handle is OCNStirling. We can introduce further handles for other areas as we roll out the work (OCNClacks for example) Anyone searching for the old handle will be re directed to our current twitter account.

I went along to this session which was very informative and well attend. I will enquire with Sarah Noone if there are slides or information I can share in my next 5-Bullet Friday. Sarah has kindly offered to send out our flyer to attendees. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay for the full session as I had been booked to do an informal presentation of OCN to the Raploch Frontline Workers group. This was a great opportunity to make some more connections with folk delivering services in The Raploch and raise awareness of the OCN work. Attendees are making enquiries with local people they think might be interested.

I was kindly invited along to this group to talk about OCN. At this meeting participants were thinking about next steps after the group ends. Listening to Donna and others speak I was reminded just how much Alzheimer Scotland provides for people. Attendees commended Alzheimer Scotland on this. As well as my opportunity to raise awareness of the OCN opportunity, I emphasised how OCN is not about duplicating anything already existing. Some of the things I covered were:

OCN is about:

• People feeding back on the 4 strands
• People getting involved as much or as little as they like
• Hearing what folk want at neighbourhood level
• Relaxed workshops and gatherings to feedback on our 4 strands in more detail
• Trying some things out

It’s also about enabling people to:

• Share what works with other areas
• Develop new ideas and ways to support one another
• Make positive changes at local level
• Lead OCN going forward

There was a lot to cover and people were very generous with their time. Everyone took a flyer, some people took our survey and one couple asked to be involved on the day. Other folk have also voiced an interest in being involved.

Thank you to Dementia Advisor Donna Patterson, link workers Gayle Morrison and Anne Dunlop, Community Activity co-ordinator Anne Christian and OT Anne Angalena assisted by student Melanie Portland for such a warm welcome.