For families living with dementia, finding a place where they can socialize without worrying about whether a loved one will feel uncomfortable, overwhelmed or out of place can be difficult.
HOPE Dementia Support HOPEs to make that a little easier this fall with the launch of a new Memory Cafe at Prairie Tavern, bringing one of its community connection programs to north Clark County.
The Memory Cafe will meet monthly on the first Friday of each month, beginning Oct. 2, according to HOPE Dementia Support Program Manager Julie Donovan. Prairie Tavern is located at 14925 NE Caples Road in Brush Prairie.
The new location is intended to provide an accessible gathering place for people living with dementia and their care partners without requiring them to travel to Vancouver.
“I would say one of our goals is to create a space in that area, right? Not everybody having to come to a central location in Vancouver, right? That's not their community,” Donovan said. “And that's what I love about the Memory Cafes, right? They can exist in a community, and it's a wonderful way, especially moving into North Clark County, that is a way to support people there.”
The response to the new cafe has already been strong. Donovan said the announcement had received more than 700 reactions and roughly 30 comments on Facebook, significantly more engagement than the organization typically sees when discussing dementia.
“We're really excited about this,” Donovan said.
The organization already operates two monthly Memory Cafes at Cameo Cafe in Vancouver. The gatherings are designed for people living with dementia and their care partners and are open to the broader community, regardless of whether participants are involved in one of HOPE Dementia Support’s other programs.
The cafes are intended to provide a relaxed social environment where people can connect without the pressure that can sometimes accompany unfamiliar public settings.
“It's about being in a social situation in a way that feels safe, right?” Donovan said. “So it's not scary for the person living with dementia, and it's not nerve-wracking for the person who is their care partner.”
The cafes typically include an activity, such as trivia focused on older television shows, along with time for conversation and socializing.
At the Cameo Cafe location, one of the monthly gatherings typically draws about 20 people or more, Donovan said.
The environment is intentionally designed around comfort and familiarity. At cafe gatherings, HOPE Dementia Support generally uses separate rooms and name tags so participants do not have to worry about remembering everyone's name.
For the restaurant menu, a smaller selection is made available with pictures, descriptions and prices to make choosing a meal easier.
Erin Bennett, HOPE Dementia Support’s volunteer coordinator, said the gatherings offer care partners an opportunity to simply spend time with others in a normal social setting.
“I think it's a time for people to just live how they normally had gone about their day …” Bennett said. “So (it) gives them that chance to just go break bread, meet new people.”
Bennett also said the Memory Cafe provides an opportunity for community members and employees at participating businesses to become more familiar with dementia.
“And also the cafe employees and staff members, same with Prairie Tavern, giving them a chance to get exposed to this because they probably meet other people that might have something similar or might be able to guide and direct it so that they can interact,” Bennett said.
Additional programs highlight
That broader awareness is part of HOPE Dementia Support’s larger mission.
HOPE Dementia Support is a program of CDM Caregiving Services and serves people living with dementia, their care partners and families, as well as others in the community.
“The central part of what we do are support groups,” Donovan said.
The organization offers weekly support groups for care partners throughout Southwest Washington and in areas of Portland, as well as two groups in southern Oregon. It also offers two groups for people living with early-stage dementia and their care partners, where participants initially meet together before separating into their own facilitated support groups.
A separate group, called New Beginnings, is available for people who have lost someone to dementia.
All of the support groups are open to the community and come at no cost to participants, Donovan said.
HOPE Dementia Support also operates Music and Memories groups in Vancouver and Kelso. Led by a certified music therapist, the gatherings are designed for people living with dementia and their care partners.
“Music is really meaningful in dementia,” Donovan said. “We say that music is magic, right? Because it brings up memories, it brings up the words.”
The organization also offers a wide range of activities intended to help people living with dementia remain connected to their communities.
Its Meet Me At programs include monthly daytime movies at Kiggins Theatre in downtown Vancouver, where the theater keeps the lights low, offers closed captioning and encourages singing along to musical films.
HOPE Dementia Support also partners with local museums, the wildlife refuge, an art studio, Metropolitan Performing Arts and Silver Buckle Youth Equestrian Center.
At the equestrian program, participants can interact with horses while staff and trained 4-H volunteers introduce the animals and share their histories.
A new Meet Me at the Kit-Tea Cafe program was also recently added.
“These are all really designed to be inclusive, and create a feeling of safety,” Donovan said.
Most of the programs are offered at no cost, with HOPE Dementia Support using grants and donations to fund them. For people connected to HOPE attending the movies, the cost is $2.
The organization also provides weighted baby dolls and pets through its Mary Ann's Babies and Pets program. Donovan said the items can be comforting for people as dementia progresses, particularly for those who may connect with the experience of caring for a baby or pet earlier in life.
The organization provides the items free upon request.
HOPE Dementia Support also distributes dementia activity boxes. Originally developed for use in hospitals, the boxes contain safe objects for people to look at, touch and interact with, particularly in unfamiliar and potentially overwhelming environments such as emergency rooms.
Families have also begun using the boxes as personalized activity and conversation kits by adding family photographs and other familiar objects.
Another resource is HOPE Walks, a series of trail maps developed specifically with people living with dementia and their care partners in mind.
The maps simplify traditional trail maps and identify practical information such as parking-to-trail access, surface type, inclines and declines, wheelchair and walker accessibility, seating and restroom locations.
“They reduce all the peripheral things on maps, right, they're not as busy,” Donovan said.
The maps are printed on waterproof paper and also include sensory activities intended to encourage people to notice things along the trail.
In addition to direct programming, HOPE Dementia Support provides community presentations covering topics including dementia basics, what to do following a diagnosis, Dementia Friends, brain health and dementia awareness, and advanced care planning.
The organization also works to help people complete health care and financial powers of attorney before they are no longer able to make those decisions themselves.
“We really want people who are living with dementia, or aging, to get that paperwork in order, so they can have, they can have their say in the decisions that are being made,” Donovan said.
A need for volunteers and donations
HOPE Dementia Support is largely volunteer-run. Donovan said the organization has three part-time employees totaling 2.25 full-time-equivalent positions.
Bennett said v