Northern Beaches Council recognised as a Dementia-Friendly Organisation

In March, Dementia Australia officially celebrated Sydney’s Northern Beaches Council as a Dementia-Friendly Organisation recognising its commitment to ensuring all areas of Council are dementia friendly.

At a celebration event during the Northern Beaches Seniors Festival, Mayor Michael Regan said he was very proud that Council was undertaking the necessary steps, including training staff, on how to better interact with people in the community who are living with dementia.

“We want the Northern Beaches to be a place where people with dementia can continue to participate fully in community life,” Mayor Regan said.

“There are currently 6,313 people living with dementia on the Northern Beaches which is expected to more than double by 2058.

“This means dementia is likely to have a bigger impact on our area as the proportion of residents aged over 65 is greater than other parts of Sydney.”

One of Council’s main actions involves training almost 1,000 key frontline staff to become dementia aware by completing Dementia Australia’s online training Become a Dementia Friend.

“To date we have trained 533 staff on how to Become a Dementia Friend,” Mayor Regan said.

Northern Beaches Council is also planning to provide in-depth training for their customer-facing staff and an audit of community spaces to move towards making them more dementia friendly. Their libraries teams are working on a project to make libraries a safe space for those living with dementia.

Further to Council’s commitment to building a dementia-friendly community, they have provided three-year funding for the Northern Beaches Dementia Alliance to implement a Dementia Friendly Community Action Plan.

In December 2021, the Northern Beaches Dementia Alliance hosted a series of webinars on Demystifying Dementia which Council proudly supported.

You can view these sessions on the Northern Beaches Dementia Alliance website at https://dementiaalliancenb.com.au/information-resources/

Are you interested in what this could look like in your community?

The first step is to become a Dementia Friend. Find out more at dementiafriendly.org.au or call the National Dementia Helpline on 1800 100 500.