About Us
Our mission is that people living with dementia in the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, and their family carers, should be empowered and enabled to live well.
We aim to help people with a dementia diagnosis build resilience, pursue their aspirations and draw on and be sustained by their own and their community’s strengths.
Our Mission
For many who are diagnosed with dementia, it is still possible to live a full and positive life.
We believe it is vital that people are exposed to a positive narrative during and after the process of obtaining a dementia diagnosis. Our aim is to support them in not giving up on themselves, nor allowing their lives to be defined by dementia.
We aim to help people stay positive and engaged, and to take responsibility for the way that they cope with the process and whatever follows.
Our Values
The work currently undertaken by EngageD Now Community Interest Company is the provision of a community lunch at Grange View Independent Living Hub in Uplands, Stroud.
The premises are provided free of charge by Stroud District Council and the food is delivered, also free of charge, from Lilian Faithfull Care’s home at Resthaven. No charge is made for the lunch and contributions are voluntary.
The event starts at 11:45 and finishes at 2:15 each Tuesday. Both times coincide with the bus that stops outside Grange View.
What We Do
In the summer of 2021, Lilian Faithfull Care approached John Colquhoun* with a view to starting a ‘meeting centre’ in Stroud, following the Adjusting for Change model developed successfully in Holland in the 1980s.
It was felt that any centre should be grounded in the local community and focus on people's and the community's strengths, rather than their needs - that is to say on what they can, rather than cannot, do.
*(Previously chair of Uplands Care Service, with which they had merged at the end of February 2020.)
Our Foundation
We intend to share our approach and provide appropriate training in other social hubs and centres of community activity in the Stroud area.
We also aim to employ a part-time Community Engagement Co-ordinator to oversee our work at Grange View, reach out to other community hubs, and liaise with referring agencies to increase the number of professional referrals.
Funding applications have been made and one third of our target of £30,000 has already been received or pledged.
Our Future Plans
Our Team
Our Chair
John Colquhoun
MSc Disability Studies, Retired Solicitor, former Chair Barnwood Trust
Interim Chief Executive and Director of Care, Lilian Faithfull Care
Suzanne Beckley
Deputy Director of Care, Lilian Faithfull Care
Lisa Ferneyhough-Moss
Former Health and Wellbeing Officer at Stroud District Council, Trustee Gloucestershire Older Persons’ Association
Dilys Warren
Mental Health Manager Gloucestershire Health & Care NHS Foundation Trust, Former Labour Group Leader Gloucestershire County Council