A safe environment where people with dementia can meet for a coffee or lunch with their carers and families and enjoy some time together has opened.

The Caring Café provides support and information by groups led by the Alzheimer’s Society and is run by Crossroads Care in partnership with Richmond Council. The Mayor of Richmond, Cllr Boulton, marked the official opening of the café at the Homelink Centre in Hospital Bridge Road on Saturday (August 2). Homelink  is one of the Mayor’s chosen charities for the year. 

Crossroads Care originally launched the first Caring Café in 2002 at Sheen Lane Day Centre. Since then the service has become increasingly important for those who care for someone with dementia. To allow as many people as possible to have access to such a well-loved service, the Caring Café will continue to run from Sheen Lane Day Centre on the third Saturday of each month. On the first Saturday of the month it will be open at its new location at Homelink Day Centre.

Richmond’s Mayor, said:
“The Caring Café is a place where people living with dementia can share their experiences in a safe environment. It brings together carers, loved ones, and trained experts from Crossroads Care. It has become an invaluable service which is why I did not hesitate to select Crossroads Care as one of my chosen charities for the year.”
Janet Fevrier, CEO of Crossroads Care, added: 
‘As a member of the Richmond Dementia Alliance . We are very pleased to be able to work closer with Homelink and continue our work with the Alzhiemers society.  Opening this new Caring Café for gives people living with dementia and their carers in this area better access to this much needed service’ .
The Caring Café is now part of the Carers’ Hub Service, a local health resource that was commissioned by Richmond Council. The hub provides a range of services delivered by a group of nine charities that work together. It is managed by Richmond Carers’ Centre. Services can be anything from emotional support, short breaks and leisure programmes, training and workshops for carers, and a host of other practical support initiatives.
The Caring Café will be among the first services to run from the Homelink Day Centre following a regeneration project that will make it a pioneering 21st Century Centre. Thanks to £1m plus of funding from the Council, Department of Health, and Homelink, the centre is being totally rebuilt to provide a state-of the-art, dementia-friendly centre.

For more information on the Carers’ Hub visit http://www.richmondchs.org/

For more information on Crossroads Care
http://www.carers.org/local-service/richmond-and-kingston

For more information on Richmond Carers’ Centre visit http://www.richmondcarers.org

For media enquiries contact Mark Coleman on 020 8487 5158 or email mark.coleman@richmond.gov.uk

The past couple of months have been very hectic but exciting.  RHLT is now part of the Community Independent Living Service and has introduced a Job Club in partnership with Mencap for adults with a learning disability.   The club supports participants to complete a profile which will become a CV, we will then support people to find volunteering opportunities and paid employment.  We hold workshops for learning new skills and have guest speakers, last week we had a transport police officer who came and spoke to the group.

We also celebrated learning disabilities week.  Along with other organisations we put on a packed week of opportunities for people to try out new things including a buffet at our weekly pub night at the Cabbage Patch; this is a great opportunity for people with a learning disability to socialise in a safe environment, it’s also very popular sometimes up to 30 people attend!  We also showcased our book club along with the library services, our unique book club is for people of all abilities and involves storytelling and puppetry.  The grand finale was on Friday June 26th, this was a day of entertainment and fun, the theme was ‘my first experience’ and five adults spoke about their first experience of work, voting and travelling abroad, it was really informative and inspiring for the audience.

Leisure breakaway, which is part of the carers hub also organised a trip for five young adults with a learning disability to Paultons Theme Park in Southampton.  The group had a fabulous time and their carers had a well-deserved break, one of the carers said “it was great to be able to give a bit more time to my other daughters and just be able to relax at home without having to think about occupying R.  Things like this really help to get R’s confidence back so she can move on from what has been a really difficult few months.”

This weekend we will be at St Margaret’s fair, every year they use the fair profits to support a number of charities in the community, this year they received applications from thirteen very worthy causes and Committee members had the difficult job of choosing which three charities to support, we were one of the lucky three that were chosen!

Next week it’s the Dragon Boat race, this is the second year we have entered now, staff, volunteers and users of our services will be furiously paddling along the Thames to raise funds for RHLT, come along and support us it’s a great day!

For more information about RHLT please look at our website http://www.rhlt.org.uk/