Jewish charities East European dementia care move

The partnership, which also involves the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, was launched in response to limited social and medical support for older people with dementia throughout the former Soviet Union.

Simon Morris,Chief Executive at Jewish Care said: “I am proud and excited that we have become involved in this invaluable project. World Jewish Relief funded Jewish Care staff to join them in providing training and support to homecare and community centre staff in Eastern Europe. The programme has been a huge success and a two-way learning experience for both our staff and those they have provided training to.

“As an organisation we want to share our knowledge and experience with the wider world. We are constantly learning and evolving to ensure we can provide quality support for people living with dementia, their carers and families.”

More than 200 people have already participated in seminars across the three Eastern European nations which aims to capitalise on Jewish Care’s expertise as a social care provider and Word Jewish Relief’s 25 years of experience working in the region.

The goal of the training is to create more staff working on dementia care with responsibility for co-ordinating new services, raising awareness and running sessions for their peers.

Currently in Minsk, Belarus there are only four part-time staff working on dementia care.

Paul Anticoni, Chief Executive at World Jewish Relief said: “World Jewish Relief’s older people programmes have so far tackled loneliness, health issues and illnesses and provided vital home repairs, but we knew we needed to do even more. Dementia is something which affects people from all walks of life and so it had to form part of our holistic approach to older people care. We want to support the most vulnerable people, and people with dementia can be extremely isolated. The medical model is still very much used in the Former Soviet Union rather than the social model of care which looks at the environment and society’s capacity to change - if we want widespread, ground-breaking reform, we need to tackle this.”

World Jewish Relief has funded Jewish Care staff to join them in planning and running a series of training seminars for homecare workers and staff in Jewish community centres in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.

The programme’s ambition to transform society’s view of ageing and dementia also saw Government officials join the trainings. 

Feedback from the training has so far been very positive.

Gill Yentis, Jewish Care’s Dementia Development Practitioner said: “When I first got involved I thought this was a huge challenge as even in the UK it has been difficult to change the culture of care. But we are constantly learning too - taking part in this programme has helped me as a practitioner as well. I have learned a lot from the participants and seeing the amazing resilience of staff there, despite a lack of resources, shows a huge potential that we sometimes lack even in the UK.”

One woman who attended a training course in Kiev and asked not to be named said: “The seminar dramatically improved my understanding of how someone living with dementia feels. I now understand how to communicate with them and how to support their relatives.”