Dementia Awareness Week 2017 Monday 29 May – Sunday 4 June

Alzheimer Scotland staff toolkit

DementiaAwareness Week 2017

1 Welcome

2 Awareness raising ideas a Dementia Friends b Open day c Partnering for promotion

3 Tea & Blether - fundraising event

4 Working with local media

5 Social media

6 Where to find resources

7 Key dates

8 Key contacts

Contents

WelcomeDear colleagues,

Welcome to the Alzheimer Scotland staff toolkit, which is designed to help you make the most of Dementia Awareness Week Scotland 2017 (DAW2017).

Dementia Awareness Week Scotland is our annual opportunity to generate maximum exposure around dementia and change how Scotland talks about and acts on dementia.

This year, the key theme of DAW2017 is friendship and social inclusion.

During DAW2017 we want to inspire people to value friendships new and old, educate people on what they can expect when a friend or family member is diagnosed with dementia, tell people about the local services available to them, and encourage people to get involved in fundraising for Alzheimer Scotland.

This year, our key calls to action are:• Take some time to understand more about dementia.

Awareness of dementia is at an all-time high, but what do you really know about how it impacts people’s lives?

• Discover what you can do to include people with dementia, their families and carers; people cope better when they are included socially.

• Hold a Tea & Blether fundraiser. Team up with your friends, family or colleagues to raise funds for Alzheimer Scotland.

• In this toolkit you will find hints, tips and links to resources to support you to plan and run four key Dementia Awareness Week activities, including awareness raisers and our flagship fundraiser – Tea & Blether.

As ever, we want to try and get the biggest bang for our buck and it becomes more difficult to do this when we try to do too many things at once. We’ve got a restricted budget and a small communications and marketing team; it isn’t possible to support every bespoke idea. In order for us to strengthen our brand and make the best use of our time and resources we would really appreciate it if you could embrace the activities outlined in this pack.

At a national level, we will be working with the media to gain a high profile for our key messages and reach as many people as we can across Scotland. Throughout the week we will share a series of powerful personal stories to highlight the power of friendship when living with dementia.

And, of course, on Friday 2 June we have the Alzheimer Scotland Annual Conference - the most important date in the diary for Scotland’s dementia community – where we will be discussing the big issues – from the impact of Brexit on research and collaboration, to the contradictory nature of nutrition, food and drink messages about risk reduction and prevention.

If you have any exciting stories from your area that fit into the theme of friendship and kindness that you think it would be good to share during the week, please contact Julia Morrison (jmorrison@alzscot.org) in the Communications Team.

Here’s to a fun and successful Dementia Awareness Week Scotland 2017!

Dementia FriendsDementia Awareness Week is the perfect opportunity for us to get out and about in the community and set up Dementia Friends sessions to help educate people about dementia.

Dementia Friends sessions should only be delivered by a fully trained member of staff, like your local Dementia Advisor. If you need to know who is trained in your area, contact Kate McQuillan for details (kmcquillan@alzscot.org).

Your local Dementia Advisor is likely already running sessions with local businesses and organisations, but Dementia Awareness Week is a good opportunity to organise and promote public/open sessions. There will be a lot of publicity going on around the week and the public will be more receptive to signing up.

Where should we have it?You could run the session from your local service. For example, a Dementia Friends session could be part of an open day at your service.

You could also consider asking your local library, place of worship, community centre or school. It’s a good idea to select a venue which is familiar to people in your community.

When should we have it?First of all, you will need to check your local Dementia Advisor’s availability to deliver the sessions.

The timing depends on who you want to come along to your event. You will probably want to attract as wide a range of people as possible, so an evening or weekend event when people are not at work is probably best.

Promoting your session• Create your own posters and fliers on ALIS or use an empty

belly poster which will be provided in the pack you receive in April.

• Email Matthew Adams (madams@alzscot.org) with details of your session and he will list it on the Dementia Friends and Dementia Awareness Week Scotland website. Just let him know the:

• date• time• location (full address including postcode)• capacity

• Adapt the press release template with your event information.• Check to see if your service has a scheduled newsletter or

e-newsletter and include the details.• Post your event on your local Facebook page. • Email your local contacts and ask them to share it.

Suggested text for a Facebook post or email invitation:What do you know about dementia?Come along to our free Dementia Friends information session to learn more about what it is like to live with dementia and turn that understanding into action. It’s really easy to do! Sometimes all it takes is a cup o’ kindness.You’ll discover the small things you can do to make life easier for people living with dementia and you can get answers to your questions about dementia.Event details:When: [day, date, time]Where: [address]Booking: [link to your listing on the Dementia Friends website www.dementiafriendsscotland.org/information-sessions/ ]Cost: [Free – even if you think it is obvious that something is free, it’s always best to reiterate]

You could also consider spending a small amount of money (around £15) on local Facebook advertising to help promote your event to local people and increase awareness of our activity in your local area. For hints and tips on doing this please contact Julia Morrison (jmorrison@alzscot.org)

To make sure we have accurate national records for Dementia Friends sessions, the Dementia Advisor or person delivering must return the following information to Kate McQuillan (kmcquillan@alzscot.org): • Dementia Friends contact form - one form should be filled

out after each session, recording details such as where the event was held and how many people attended. This gives us an overview of overall numbers and geographical spread of sessions.

• Participant information – details of each participant should be recorded through the Dementia Friends website (www.dementiafriendsscotland.org). This ensures we have accurate records of all Dementia Friends in Scotland.

• Participant pledge forms - please only forward forms which record participant desire to volunteer and/or fundraise with us. This helps us ensure they receive appropriate information about opportunities with us.

It would be helpful if you could gather this information for all sessions held during Dementia Awareness Week and send it to Kate in one Dementia Awareness Week batch so we can collate figures for Dementia Awareness Week activity across Scotland and evaluate our success over the week.

Open dayHolding an open day during Dementia Awareness Week Scotland is a great way to celebrate all the wonderful activity that goes on at your service or Dementia Resource Centre and tell people in your community about what’s available.

Here are some things you should think about when planning an open day…

Who is it for? Is the open day aimed at professionals or families? This is an important question to answer as it will impact when you hold your event and how you talk about your services. For example, professionals will be looking out for keywords and phrases like “outcome-focused approaches”, while families will probably respond better to information that is less jargonistic.

When should we have it?Professionals are more likely to attend something during working hours, whereas families may prefer to visit during the evening or at the weekend.

What should we do?Each of our services is unique so you will have your own special activities that you want to highlight, but here are some ideas:

• Create display zones with photos and artefacts to highlight the range of services and activities available and have experts on hand to explain what they do and answer any questions.

• Provide opportunities for people to speak to people with dementia and their carers who already use the service. They can explain how the service has supported them and what they enjoy about coming.

• Have volunteers on hand to talk about what they get out of volunteering at the service.

• Give out packs with general information about Alzheimer Scotland and locality-specific information.

• Use TV screens or computer monitors to display a slideshow of photos and quotes, or show videos.

• Set up activities for visitors to get involved with. For example, if you provide art therapy, let visitors have a go while you explain the benefits.

• Create a gallery of positive quotes and feedback about your service. Speech bubble templates to use in your display are available at www.alzscot.org/daw-staff.

• Set up an area to promote Dementia Friends Scotland. Have a computer displaying the website and people can watch the videos and sign up there and then.

• Provide refreshments. Give people the chance to relax and chat over a cup of tea in an informal environment. You could leave a collecting can on the tables for donations.

• Include a fundraising corner where you can highlight local activity and talk about how fundraising supports your service.

• Have a collection can at your reception desk so that visitors can make a donation.

Things to rememberMake sure you get permissions from people to display their work and share photos of them. Download a permissions form here.Make sure all material of a sensitive nature is stored securely.

Promoting your open day• Create your own posters, flyers and social media images on

the internal toolkit.• Check your stock of leaflets. You will receive a delivery of

Dementia Awareness materials in April but if you need extras please contact Kirsty Yanik (kyanik@alzscot.org) to order any additional materials you require for DAW by Friday 12 May.

• List your open day on the Dementia Awareness Week Scotland website. Just fill in the online form at www.alzscot.org/daw-staff.

• Adapt the press release template with your event information.• Check to see if your service has a scheduled newsletter or

e-newsletter and include the details.

Suggested text for a Facebook post or email invitation:

Join us at our open day!Find out what we do at [insert service name here] from our staff and the people who use our services.

To celebrate Dementia Awareness Week Scotland, we’re inviting you into our service for a look around. You can get answers to your questions about dementia, take part in activities, and speak to staff, volunteers and people who use our services.

Event details:When: [day, date, time]Where: [address]Booking: [there will probably be no need to book, but if you wish people to let you know in advance provide an email and telephone number for booking]Cost: [Free – even if you think it is obvious that something is free, it’s always best to reiterate]

Partnering for promotionWorking with local partners to create Dementia Awareness Week Scotland displays around your locality is a really simple, yet effective, way to get information and resources out into the community and highlight the week.

This year, we’re going to centralise the distribution of materials so we can get a better picture of who is engaging with us and what resources they need. What we need you to do is get the word out with your local contacts and share the web link where they can order their materials (or help them to fill in the form if they’re not comfortable on computers).

Who to approach• Schools, nurseries, colleges and universities• Doctors, dentists and hospitals• Local businesses, shops and cafes• Leisure centres• Citizens Advice Centres• Police stations

Asking partnersHere’s some text you can use to email out to your contacts to ask, or put into a flyer you can drop into local businesses

Can you help us get the message out during Dementia Awareness Week Scotland?From Monday 29 May to Sunday 4 June people in Scotland will be raising the profile of dementia in Scotland and we need your help.Could your workplace spare some space to host an information display in the run up to and throughout Dementia Awareness Week Scotland?We can provide you with materials free of charge that will provide useful information to your staff and customers who may be concerned about dementia.Visit www.alzscot.org/supportDAW to find out more.

When to do itThe website will be open for orders week commencing Monday 10 April. The display should be up for DAW between 29 May and 4 June. It would be good to have the materials up a week or so in advance of the week so that people can find out what’s happening locally and plan it in to their diaries.

Resources• Generic Dementia Awareness Week poster• Dementia and Friendship leaflet• Helpline cards• Dementia Friends leaflets• Alzheimer Scotland membership leaflets• Tea & Blether pack

Tea & BletherThis year we want to make Tea & Blether the iconic fundraising event for Alzheimer Scotland. Macmillan Cancer Support have the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning, Breast Cancer Care have Strawberry Tea and we have Tea & Blether!This social fundraiser is a really easy way for people to get involved with fundraising and most people are familiar with the format which makes it really simple for people to plan.Tea & Blether is particularly successful in a setting where people with a lack of prior knowledge about dementia may be involved. Tea & Blether provides a friendly and familiar setting where people can relax and explore the topic of dementia. In a service situation a Tea & Blether can help to get more people in the local community engaging with the service and understanding the different levels of support available to them in their local community.In the past, some services have held Strawberry Teas, but ‘Strawberry Tea’ is now very closely associated with Breast Cancer Care so we urge all services to adopt the Alzheimer Scotland Tea & Blether branding. We want to make sure that Tea & Blether = Alzheimer Scotland in people’s minds. Don’t worry; you can still serve delicious strawberry cakes!

What should we do?To hold a Tea & Blether, all you need to do is get the kettle on and bake some treats for staff, service users and members of the public to enjoy for a small donation to Alzheimer Scotland. Every service will be sent a bundle of Tea & Blether fundraising packs which you can share with supporters and use yourself. Included in the pack will be a pop up money box, easy to make recipes and decorative bunting. If you’re holding a Tea & Blether at your service, make sure to have someone knowledgeable about our services on hand, and pop some leaflets on the table so that people can find out a bit more about dementia.

Spice up your Tea & BletherHere are some ideas for ramping up the fun and the fundraising at your Tea & Blether:• Invite guests to dress in purple for the occasion for a

suggested donation.• Include a raffle for a Summer Hamper? You could ask

shops nearby to donate some local produce to raffle off during your Tea & a Blether event.

• Try a selection of purple food and drink? From plums and blueberries, to purple carrots and lilac cupcakes washed down with Vimto or Ribena, what purple foods can you think of to perk up your palette?

• ‘Memories Day jukebox’ – download a selection of songs onto your computer or phone to play throughout the day. Charge guests 10p to pick their favourite retro song.

• Who’s the baby? – work out who the cheeky tots in the photos grew up to be with this competition. Ask staff, service users and volunteers to submit photos and display them in a public area. Create a simple answer sheet and ask people to donate to enter. Offer a prize for the person

who guesses the most correctly.• Pop up charity shop – Ask your staff, service users and volunteers

to have a clear out in advance of your event to encourage them to bring in things they no longer want to sell for a donation at your very own pop up charity shop stall.

There is more information on how to plan an event at: www.alzscot.org/daw-staff.

Staying safe and legalWhen making food remember to adhere to health & safety guidelines and ensure food is adequately labelled to display allergen information.If you plan to sell raffle tickets over the course of more than 1 day you must refer to the Raffle Instructions at: www.alzscot.org/daw-staff.

There is more information on staying safe and legal at: www.alzscot.org/daw-staff

Working With Local MediaWorking with local media is a great way to get the word out about what is happening in your area. Your local newspaper, radio and TV stations, and listings websites are a fantastic resource.

Publicity is a vital part of awareness-raising as it:• tells people about your event/activity,• encourages them to attend,• celebrates what happened on the day, and• shares your fundraising success afterwards.Study other charities and how their awareness-raising and fundraising activities are covered in your local media. Keep copies of the best examples.Contact Elaine Nixon, PR Manager (enixon@alzscot.org), for information and advice on working with the media.

What interests local mediaWe want to reach as many people as possible to share good news stories which affect people living with dementia, their families and carers.

Areas to considerDAW2017 is themed around friendship and social inclusion so have a think about examples of your service helping to keep people connected• Maybe you have a pair of chums who met at one of your

Dementia Cafes or Daycare sessions? Could they tell their story and let the media know the huge difference made to their lives by our service and the friendships they have made there?

• Has a local business or community service worked with you to go the extra mile and ensure they’re accessible to people with dementia? DAW2017 could be a great time to share that success.

• Will you be holding an event/fundraising where people can mingle, make friends and find out more about dementia?

• Facts and figures – i.e. a call out for x number of volunteers or celebrating a milestone of volunteers joining a group or fundraising event. Celebrating x amount raised in the area to help support local service.

Getting to know your local mediaWe have a list of local media contact details for Scotland at www.alzscot.org/daw-staff. This can help to get you started with what’s in your area, but bear in mind that it is not regularly updated. The website www.media.info/uk is extremely useful as a regularly updated source of contact info for local media.

The template for our standard DAW2017 local press release can be found on ALIS. Schedule in a regular task (via your Outlook calendar) to develop your media contacts. Don’t leave this until just before DAW2017, when time is already very tight. Make direct contact with local newspapers, radio stations and individual journalists as far as possible; local media respond very well to working with local staff (often much more so than requests from National Office in Edinburgh).

You should also pick up a copy (or a few copies) of your local newspapers. This includes any free newspapers or magazines.Find out the days they are published and their deadlines for submitting copy. Take a note of the types of stories they publish and get to know the names of local journalists you can approach directly. Building a relationship with a local journalist, so you can call them direct, greatly increases your chances of getting coverage.

Take the time to listen to your local radio stations, including the online ones. Smaller stations are often keen to interview charity representatives about fundraising events and activities.

Planning your communicationsAs most local newspapers are only printed once a week, make sure you send your press releases to them well in advance. For example, if it’s sold on a Thursday, the copy deadline is usually Tuesday morning (sometimes Monday afternoon).

If you’re promoting an event in advance, submit your release to your local media at least a month beforehand. If you are keen for a local journalist or photographer to attend, be sure to include that at the top in red text. Remember to follow this up with another release closer to the event. Always plan for a post-event

press release (with photograph – see below) to maximise your coverage, even if a journalist can’t attend on the day.

Consider local Radio/TVTV news journalists and planners need to show something visually interesting, so think about something linked to your local event that would capture the attention of a TV audience – is it a walk or a coffee morning that you could stage-up to help promote a future event. Think about a spokesperson who would take part in an interview to camera and prepare in advance for questions relating the event and the services we provide. Draft together a few bullet points with key messages including date/time of event, what it aims to achieve and include that it’s an Alzheimer Scotland event – Scotland’s leading dementia charity.

Talk to the news teams at your local radio stations, it may be that they agree to a call-in interview whereby a spokesperson for the event is asked to talk about why it taking place, who it will benefit and why supporting people with dementia is so important. Again, preparation is key for any live interviews so prepare by drafting a list of possible question and answers.

PhotographyIf you plan enough time to prepare a press release and share with your local press contacts, follow up with the news desk a few days before your event to find out if they intend to send along a photographer to cover the event. Make sure you have a named contact for press on arrival and prepare in advance to have everyone available to take part in the photo shoot. Often press photographers will take a little longer to secure the best possible image to suit their audience.

Make sure you capture your own images for publicity in case a local press photographer can’t make it along. Having a good photograph can make all the difference to getting your story published, especially after an event. Make sure someone is booked to take good quality photos at your fundraising events; this doesn’t have to be a professional photographer (although that will help a lot), but should be someone who has proper

camera equipment and knows how to use it. Photos taken on mobile phones are rarely of a good enough quality for print purposes. As a rule of thumb, any digital photo file (usually a jpeg) that you submit for print should be at least one megabyte in size and have a resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch).

Ways you can improve your photographs• Think about a location – choose a spot with the least

distracting background. If there is a banner or sign with our new branding think about staging around this. Do not stage photography in or around old branding. If inside, choose somewhere with good light and watch out for reflections from windows.

• Does the picture look interesting – a line of people looking at a camera is just not interesting. People doing something or looking at something other than the camera will make an interesting image for press. Think about props as they can help tell a story. If staged in, e.g. memory garden use garden spades and planting pots to promote the hard work put into the garden.

• Different angles – often a picture will look good with some height so use a chair or a step ladder to gain some height to capture the moment. Other idea would be to ask people to stand on different steps or stand on a staircase to give the image some movement.

Please ensure you have permissions for the people you photograph. Explain to them where and when the image will be used and if you intend to send it out to press contacts. Our photography consent form can be found at: www.alzscot.org/daw-staff.

Quick Do’s and Don’tsDO get to know your local newspapers, magazines, radio stations and journalists.DO create a list of your local media contacts.DO make a media plan for your fundraising event/activity and allow enough time to carry it out.DON’T just think of what you want to tell people about your activity. Think about what the public likes to read. Is there a great story you can share about why someone is fundraising for us? A story about the support someone receives from us that you have permission to share? A poignant experience or something humorous? Is someone famous involved?DON’T respond directly to journalist/media enquiries not related to your activity – e.g. if the request relates to something about policy or a locally sensitive issue (like a NHS dementia unit closure etc.) Refer them to Elaine Nixon (enixon@alzscot.org) or the Communications Team.A draft press release in Word format is at:www.alzscot.org/daw-staff.

Social MediaSocial media is another great way of shouting about what we’re up to for Dementia Awareness Week Scotland. The hashtag for Dementia Awareness Week Scotland is #DAW2017.

We will start promoting Tea & Blether fundraising packs through social media in April and we will make a full suite of assets available to the local page admins, including Facebook headers, images for use on Facebook and Twitter timelines.

On the Friday before Dementia Awareness Week we will send a further bundle of assets to local page admins with instructions on use and a timeline key posts to look out for and share during the week.

On ALIS, we have a selection of images you can download for use on social media to promote the Dementia Awareness Week events we’ve covered in this toolkit. In order to keep our awareness week tight, professional, focussed and on-brand we strongly recommend that you use the themes suggested. Bespoke social media assets will only be generated in exceptional circumstances and requests should reach Julia Morrison (jmorrison@alzscot.org) by Friday 7 April.

Here are some tips on how to construct a good social media post for an event:• Write about what your audience is going to get out of coming

to your event, not what you want from them.• Get as much key event information into the text of the post

as possible, not the picture. This helps with accessibility if people are using a screen reader or similar. The picture is there to be eye-catching, not the source of information.

• Create your event as a listing on the DAW2017 website here and link people there for more information. You won’t be able to fit all of your information in a post so make sure you’re pointing people to more information. Also, the added benefit of this is that you can track how many people are clicking on your link.

Paying to promote your postsIf you’re having an event that you want to promote to a wide group of people locally, you can pay to advertise on Facebook.Even spending as little as £10 can help you reach an audience that you wouldn’t usually speak to. The minimum spend on promoting a Facebook post is £5 per day.You can make sure you’re reaching your exact target audience.For example, if you’re holding a Tea & Blether fundraiser you could advertise to people:• Who live within 10 miles of your service/event• Love tea and cake or the Great British Bake Off• Have an interest in dementiaIf you would like to pay to advertise your event locally on Facebook, get in touch and we can help you target your adverts.#DAW2017.

Your DAW goodiesThis year, to streamline our processes, we’re offering you the choice of three standard DAW packs to help get your events off the ground.Whether you want to mark DAW in a low-key fashion or whether you want to hold a big information and fundraising social, we have a bundle to suit you.Get your order in by Friday 7 April to get your DAW2017 off to a cracking start. Submit your order here: link to form/survey monkey

Small (10-20 people)This basic starter pack includes enough posters, leaflets and fundraising packs for you to resource a small event or display that gets your nearest and dearest talking about Dementia Awareness Week.

Medium (20-50 people)If you’re holding a couple of small events or a medium sized event then this is the package for you. It has enough DAW goodies to ensure you put on a good show.

Large (50-100 people)Are you going to paint the streets purple this DAW? If so, this treasure trove of goodies will help you shout about DAW from the rooftops.

Item Small Medium Large A4 DAW empty belly poster 3 6 12A4 DAW generic poster 3 6 12A4 Tea & Blether poster 2 4 7A4 Open Day poster 2 4 7A4 Dementia Friends poster 2 4 7Dementia and Friendship 20 40 75leaflet* NEW!Dementia Helpline cards 10 30 50Dementia Friends leaflets 10 30 50What is dementia? 10 30 50Alzheimer Scotland 10 20 30membership leafletsDIY Bunting 2 6 10 Tea & Blether 3 5 10fundraising pack

*Dementia and Friendship leaflet [NEW]This new bitesize booklet contains information on what changes can be expected when someone is living with dementia and what friends, family and the wider community can do to support them.

If you have special DAW plans that require bespoke quantities of materials, please get in touch with Julia Morrison by Friday 7 April to discuss your requirements. This will include you covering the cost of bespoke materials from your own budget.

Timeline

Week commencing Monday 13 March You receive this toolkit which outlines messages, support materials and timeline for DAW2017 activity

Friday 7 AprilDeadline to order your DAW pack at www.alzscot.org/daw-staff or to submit a request for bespoke DAW materials to Julia at jmorrison@alzscot.org. If you order bespoke materials you will have to cover the cost from your own budget.

w/c 10 April - (TBC – this date may change due to media partner/potential celebrity involvement)• Public-facing campaign launches to encourage the public to sign up to host a Tea & Blether fundraiser during DAW. • Website for DAW2017 launches www.alzscot.org/daw2017 • Facebook page admins receive Tea & Blether digital materials.• Partner toolkit becomes available – aimed at NHS, partner charities and other stakeholders. You will receive a link to this that you can share with your contacts.

w/c 17 April DAW materials will be delivered to your service. Instructions will be included in the pack as to what materials should be used ahead of DAW and which materials should be saved for during the week activity.

Friday 12 May • Deadline for services to order “top up” information

materials on top of your original package delivered in April. • Deadline to submit your DAW event to the calendar on

the DAW website. Find the online form at www.alzscot.org/daw-staff

Monday 29 May • DAW2017 begins.• Facebook page admins receive their digital materials and a timeline for the week.

Friday 2 June Alzheimer Scotland Annual Conference held at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC)

KEY CONTACTSGeneral enquiries Julia Morrison jmorrison@alzscot.org

DAW Pack enquiries Kirsty Yanik kyanik@alzscot.org

Media and PR Elaine Nixon enixon@alzscot.org

Social media Julia Morrison jmorrison@alzscot.org & Matthew Adams madams@alzscot.org

Fundraising queries Your community fundraiser