The Forget-me-not fully inclusive musical monthlyCafé.

Description

Our Cavan musical Forget-me-not Café was started thirteen years ago this month by Carole Beattie and Loretta Smith and has been running monthly ever since with the exception of the Covid years during which time we went online.
It is a safe place where people with Dementia and their families/carers can connect, socialise and build new support networks. Although our Café has evolved into much more than that. Five local nursing homes now bring their residents some elderly or disabled along to meet their loved ones at our Café. People living on their own are also made very welcome.
Over the last few years we have engaged with students from local colleges who come and play for us or just hand out cups of tea and chat to our visitors. Young and old have so much to learn from one another. We even have a gorgeous little therapy dog who dances for us all!
Music is one of the last memories to leave someone with Dementia. Many of our visitors are delighted to sing for us. It is wonderful to get the local Community involved young, old, disabled or just lonely. A morning spent in our Café is uplifting and joyous. Our Forget-me-not Café would be honoured to be considered for nomination under the Community Age Friendly Active and healthy ageing award Category and also the Age Friendly Community Innovation Award category.

Aim of Initiative

To bring together older members of our community -people with Dementia, Disability, living alone etc and provide a safe, welcoming environment where together with their Carer’s, loved ones they can meet and enjoy refreshments whilst listening to live music played by our wonderful maestro Dessie Ronan. We now encourage young people, TY students to get involved also and the response has been amazing. It is also a wonderful chance to meet others, gain information and share experiences.

Who is it aimed at

People with Dementia, Disability, living alone or just like to sing. We are very inclusive and all are welcome.

3 Steps critical to success

1. Finding a suitable venue which we did at Castlemanor Community Centre in Cavan. This is ideal for space and stage.
2. Finding suitable volunteers
   The same volunteers have been with us for more than 5 years now. Most have lost loved ones to Dementia so understand very well how to communicate and inform our visitors. We also have a trained nurse and a representative from the Alzheimer Society of Ireland in attendance.
3. Sourcing appropriate music and entertainment
   We have the services of two wonderful musicians, one of whom is almost 90 years old but still a great entertainer.
   They encourage people to come up and sing and even in fairly late stages of dementia it is amazing how they can remember every word of a song.

3 Challenges in Planning / Delivery

1. Suitable venue
2. Volunteers
3. Fitting everyone in now.

3 Outcomes / Benefits

1. The outcome is that we have become a product of our own success. Five local nursing homes bus their people in and of course people living at home and their loved ones come along. We now have between 50 and 70 people attending our Cafe now.
2. The happiness that music brings to all gives everyone attending the Cafe a complete sense of joy and the feeling of being uplifted for Clients and Volunteers alike.
3. It helps to give young people a better understanding of people with Dementia or Disability or even just people that are lonely. The connections made are a joy to behold.