Author will pen play to help kids understand dementia

CAMPAIGNERS working to make Barnard Castle a more dementia friendly town are teaming up with a children’s author to produce a play aimed at giving primary school pupils an insight into the condition.

The short play will be written by Jessica Shepherd, author of the picture book Grandma, the touching story of a young boy’s encounter with dementia and its effect on families.

Ms Shepherd is working on the project with members of the Barnard Castle Dementia Friendly steering group.

Chairman Ian Kirkbride explained: “We had an open meeting last year at which we asked what things Barnard Castle could do to be more dementia friendly and one of the things was to take it into schools and let the younger generation know about it.

“Could we come up with a small playlet, scripted and acted out rather than show a video?

“The book by Jessica came up and we realised we had access to a resource that may give us an insight and a script.”

Ms Shepherd was due to meet members of the steering group last week, but due to the weather, she was unable to travel, so a videoconference call was set up instead.

The consensus was that the short play should form part of a wider session on dementia.

“Perhaps the actors could be trained as dementia champions and they could respond not just as actors,” said Ms Shepherd.

However, Jill Cole, director of Northern Heartlands and a member of the steering group, said: “It is quite a big ask for members of the Castle Players wanting to act to become authorities on dementia.”

But she added: “It is a brilliant idea to make this more than a play, leaving questions unanswered.”

Steering group member Nicky Tulloch, of the Alzheimer’s Society, said the charity had a volunteer dementia champion and a dementia support worker for the area who could help.

She added that the society offered a free course to anyone wishing to become a dementia champion.

“The play needs to be part of a dementia friends session. I think that would work better,” said Ms Tulloch.

Ms Shepherd said it was also important to give an all round view of dementia sufferers.

This meant not just the challenges they face “here and now” and how young people respond to them, but also reflecting on the “incredible” full lives those living with it have led.

It was agreed the play should not stereotype dementia and who the typical sufferers might be after the meeting was told that in some rare cases, people as young as 30 were being diagnosed.

Ms Shepherd will now work on producing a play of up to 30 minutes. Funding for the project is likely to come from Teesdale Action Partnership and the Northern Heartlands community initiatives fund.