With the Governments introduction of strict social distancing and self-isolating at home on Monday 23rd March, we have had to make the decision to cancel all our groups for the foreseeable future. This was a difficult decision as we know how hard many of our members will find self-isolating, particularly because we began these groups to combat loneliness for people living with dementia.
Although the groups are not running at the moment, here at TDS we have been working hard (from our respective homes!) to find ways to still support our members long distance!
We have been creating activity packs to send out to our members. These packs have included printing and posting crosswords, puzzles and quizzes, as well as items such as seeds, sandwich-bags of compost and pots; watercolour paints; jigsaws; and craft activities including knitting, felt-work and items for making rag-rugs.
We are also making many more phone calls to maintain relationships with those members who said they would like a regular call. And also supporting family carers with phone calls as they also struggle during this time without any breaks or requiring advice on how to set up further support while they themselves have to self-isolate. Volunteers who are keeping in touch with members have been advised to keep a record and should claim back the expense of phoning our members.
With the cancellation of the groups, the subs we normally gain from these groups have stopped. With no other fundraising happening at this time, if you would like to support the work we are doing to create the activity packs and regular social phone calls (which help combat loneliness for many of our members during these times), please consider supporting us by donating though our PayPal account:
A few pounds will go very far in creating an activity pack!
Thank you in advance for any support you are able to provide,
The TDS Team.
