We have been attempting to engage with the public in a number of ways recently. The first was via having a stand at an Alzheimers Care Show in London, not quite the same as the Care Show at the BIC which targets those working in the care world (we had a stand there too and lots of interest, but in a business sense), the show in London was different in that it was advertised and open to anyone interested in dementia. The organisors sold hundreds of tickets in advance to those working in the field but tickets were on sale on the day for anyone worried about their memory or their family members. This was a slightly novel approach and on the second day, a Saturday, there was a lot of footfall from people directly affected by dementia rather than those working in the field (who swarmed in on the first day). It was interesting to hear this audiences views about what Universities should be doing to address their concerns, and is an area that vexes me as we are not a campaigning organisation, nor are we a service, but we clearly need to engage with and work to our key stakeholders agendas and concerns to be having genuine impact. Training professionals working in the field is an obvious one (and the key issue raised at our own local carers forum last year) as was the need for more information to sign post people along their dementia journey (and is one of the areas Claire House-Norman and her team are currently fundraising for). However one of the big issues raised was the need to challenge perceptions about dementia, the assumption that people with dementia are less able, lost, require ‘special’ treatment that results in marginalisation and stigmatisation. Now this aspect was really interesting to us in BUDI as we also have an arts and dementia project on the go at the moment where we are collecting written accounts from people with dementia and the general public about what they think dementia is/means to them and peoples’ views and experiences about dementia; this will be exhibited at the Festival of Learning in June. Standing windswept at Bournemouth beach this weekend – one of our general public venues (we, BUDI staff and volunteer BU students, have been all over in the last week with further venues this coming week, for examples in supermarkets, shopping centres, hotels, sports centres, libraries, and schools) it struck me how many people steer away, physically and mentally, from the word dementia. Our pop ups and papers blowing around in the wind at the beach attracted attention and laughter from passing members of the general public as we raced around to pick stuff up and tie it down, and did result in some people stopping to talk about and write about their experiences/thoughts. Free sweets also pulled in teens and families to stop and talk but to not necesssarily write as they didn’t know what dementia was or didn’t want to write down their experiences. Also some people stopped, read the sign and made comments about dementia and did a physically body swerve. We also got a lot of people who did stop and write about their views and experiences (and we are currently at about 400 stories in total) but there seems to be a general fear? aversion? negativity? to the word dementia which makes our arts project even more important as we are trying to get people to think about dementia and question and challenge the negative stereotypes that abound about this condition. Engaging with the public about issues perceived as ‘difficult’ in some ways isn’t easy, nor is it easy to find practical ways for our University based work to have real impact, but we have started the journey and are open to any creative ideas others might have about how else we might go about engaging!
BU staff can login below:
Don’t miss a post!
Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.
Recent posts
BU research Funding opportunities EU
- BA Small grants- submit your ITBs!September 29, 2023
Call for abstracts | The 15th Annual Postgraduate Research ConferenceSeptember 28, 2023
Conversation article: Online safety bill – why making the UK the ‘safest place to go online’ is not as easy as the government claimsSeptember 28, 2023
Results of the third Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) published, recognising BU’s contribution to societySeptember 28, 2023
PGR Re-OrientationsSeptember 27, 2023
- RDS Pre-Award Drop-In Sessions (Funding Briefings)September 26, 2023
- RDS Pre-Award Drop-In Sessions (Funding Briefings)September 26, 2023
- Wellcome trust ECR awardSeptember 10, 2023
Time for Something New?September 7, 2023
- British Academy Small Grants WorkshopSeptember 1, 2023
- Development fund from the British Academy ECRNAugust 2, 2023
- BA Seed funding call NOW OPENAugust 2, 2023
- BU policy update for the w/e 22nd September 2023September 21, 2023
- HE policy update – summer catch up September 2023September 18, 2023
Association to Horizon Europe – Agreement in Principle ReachedSeptember 7, 2023
Webinar – ERC grants 2024September 5, 2023
- BU FoodMAPP reseachers host partner secondment from Institut Lyfe, LyonAugust 14, 2023
Two papers based on ERASMUS+ exchangeAugust 8, 2023
Search by Category
Search by popular post topics
AHRC
Brexit
BRIAN
BU research
clinical research
CMMPH
collaboration
collaborative research
conference
congratulations
Dr. Pramod Regmi
Edwin-blog-post
ESRC
EU
event
Events
funding
funding opportunities
Fusion
Fusion Investment Fund
Health
horizon 2020
HSC
impact
innovation
knowledge exchange
media
midwifery
Nepal
nhs
NIHR
open access
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
publication
public engagement
publishing
ref
research
Research Councils
research professional
RKE development framework
RKEDF
social sciences
training
widening participation
Research Information Network
- Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
- Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
- Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
- Data centres: their use, value and impact
- Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications