Ahead of Housing LIN's Still Rising to the Dementia Challenge conference taking place on 9 July, Vanessa Pritchard-Wilkes has written a blog about the aim of the webinars and why it is important for the housing sector to rise to the challenge for dementia.

We know the statistics, by 2040, 1.4 million people will be living with dementia and of those the vast majority aren’t currently and won’t be in specialist accommodation. That’s why as a housing sector (defined in the broadest way), we need to rise to the challenges that dementia poses to individuals and their families and to our organisations.

The Dementia and Housing Working Group is the only national group solely focused on advocating for the positive impact good and appropriate housing can have on people affected by dementia. Over the last few years we’ve been responding to the recommendations which cam out of the Housing and Care for Older People APPG inquiry, dementia and housing Housing for people with dementia – are we ready? - Resource Library - Resources - Housing LIN.

At the first of our three free webinar series, we’ll be sharing our outputs to those recommendations as well as inviting others working in the field of design to present their work to you. We’ll be launching our dementia design guide, looking at dementia ready criteria in West Yorkshire, gardens and toilets!

The aim of these webinars is to provide take-aways for everyone who attends whatever the size of maturity of the organisation. We will demonstrate that you can have a positive impact on the lives of people living with dementia without it costing a lot of time, energy or resource and every action takes the positive agenda forwards.

We hope that you can join us on 9 July at 3.30pm HAPPI Hour - Housing – Still Rising to the Dementia Challenge - Events - Housing LIN