Becoming a dementia-friendly community

Key Takeaways

As a Santa Clara County, Calif. supervisor, I was honored to become the first Dementia Friend when I announced at the January 2017 Seniors’ Agenda Network Summit that the county would join the National Dementia Friends USA Initiative. Santa Clara County was one of the first of 67 Dementia Friendly Communities in the United States.

Since then, 882 others in the county have become Dementia Friends out of a total of 1,654 in the state. To be a Dementia Friend, you view a series of online videos to learn about dementia and then turn that understanding into action. The action can be spreading the word about our Dementia Friendly Program or visiting someone who is living with dementia. Santa Clara County is also an Age-Friendly County.

Learn More

Your county can become a Dementia Friendly County: visit dementiafriendsusa.org.

Through our Office of Aging and Adult Services, the county has stepped up its role in organizing and supporting activities, including Dementia Friendly workshops, tours of art exhibits for those with early-stage dementia and providing information at senior centers.

Training employees to offer age-friendly customer service has also been provided to front-line customer service employees at cities in the county, a YMCA and a community center. Some of them became Dementia Friends.

On June 21, the Alzheimer’s Association and the county hosted a Dementia Friendly Communities Summit to learn about how others are creating better communities for those living with dementia. Besides the Office of Aging and Adult Services, our county campaign was joined by my colleague on the Board, Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, the Senior Center Staff in San Jose, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, Sunnyvale and Gilroy, as well as advisory board members and San Jose State University nursing and social work students.