Dementia Cafe

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.