Now and next

Every few months we take stock of what’s been going on and have a look at what we’ve got coming up, and now feels like a good time to just that!

Conferences

We’re in that weird period of some conferences being online, some returning to in-person events, and some using a hybrid approach. In May we went to the Alzheimer’s Society Conference in London, and one of our PhD Students Nathan Stephens wrote up his thoughts for a Dementia Researcher blog. We also presented at an internal University of Worcester Research Seminar, looking at ‘The challenges of reaching the right people’. This is something we’ve considered in a previous blog post, but this time we focused on our experiences with two current projects: Worcester Life Stories and Get Real with Meeting Centres. Part of the presentation looked at the challenges faced in our Get Real Work Package looking at why people don’t attend Meeting Centres.

In June we’ll be presenting twice at the Learning and Teaching Conference held at the University of Worcester. First, we’ll be talking about our Championing Physical Activity course. Then we’ll be reflecting on our Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies. We’ve also got two posters at the Alzheimer’s Disease International conference in London, looking at both our Meeting Centres and SCI-DEM projects.

Our Championing Physical Activity course will also be the topic of a presentation at the Leisure Studies Association Annual Conference in July, looking at how PhD research has been translated into education, resulting in changes to practice.

Publications

May saw the publication of three articles:

• Bray, J., Atkinson, T. & Williamson, T. (2022) You matter! Training to support family carers of people living with dementia. Journal of Dementia Care, 30(3) 20-24
• Lathan, I., Frost, F., Dobson, A., Mumford, S. & Williamson, T. (2022) “I didn’t even know you had this job!” The outcomes and facilitators of the Care Home Action Researcher-in-residence Model (CHARM). Journal of Dementia Care, 30(3) 14-19
• Morton T, Evans SB, Brooker D, Williamson T, Wong G, Tinelli M, Frost F, Bray J & Hullah N. (2022). Sustainability of locally driven centres for those affected by dementia: a protocol for the get real with meeting centres realist evaluation. BMJ Open,12(5) e062697. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/5/e062697

We’ve also contributed to a book chapter:

• Gerritsen, D., van de Roest, H., Evans, S., Leontjevas, R., Prins, M., Brooker, D. & Droes, R-M. (2022). The impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the well-being of people living with dementia. In Vandenbulcke, M., Droes, R-M. & Schokkaert, E. (2022). Dementia and Society: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Cambridge University Press.

Several articles are currently under review at various journals, and others are in the planning and writing stage – watch this space!

Education

Although our January Postgraduate Certificate modules have ended, we’re already planning the next iterations in September, so keep an eye out for social media information about what’s going on. We’re also running the next Meeting Centres Training course in July, and getting sorted for our next Championing Physical Activity course which starts in the Autumn.

June-August is supposed to be a quieter time for us in some respects, but it’s definitely still going to be busy here!

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