
Atmosphere

Information

Support

Community
A dementia cafe
- Welcomes people with dementia, their families and friends, health and social care professionals and members of the local community who are interested and involved in dementia activities in their community.
- Is free of charge.
- Meets once a month (or more regularly), at the same time and in the same place.
- Has four pillars (Atmosphere, Information, Support, Community), with corresponding principles (outlined below).
- Communication and language used at the cafe is accessible and supports personhood for people with dementia.
- Has a speaker/talk at most cafe meetings (at least 7 a year). The talk features an invited speaker(s) or involves the use of a network resource.
- Is part of the fabric of community-oriented care and connectivity pathways.
- Is run by a voluntary steering committee, which manages all aspects of the operation of the cafe and conducts a brief annual review of the cafe activities.
- When a cafe steering committee signs up to join the Irish Dementia Cafe Network, it commits to upholding the network’s shared cafe ethos and principles
Would you like to set up a dementia cafe?
A toolkit is currently being drafted, which contains detailed guidelines to support start-up dementia cafes. It is envisaged that a virtual How to set up a dementia cafe workshop will be held in October 2020, and the completed toolkit made available on this website.
If you are interested in setting up a dementia cafe in your local community and would like to be kept updated of the cafe network’s activities, join our cafe mailing list.