Six of our Year 12 students attended a YOPEY Befriender training session on 1st December hosted by Tony Gearing MBE, founder and chief executive of YOPEY – the Young People of the Year charity.

The students will be volunteering on a Thursday afternoon at a local care home where many of the residents are living with dementia. During the training, they learned that dementia is caused by diseases of the brain and it is progressive, meaning that the symptoms will gradually get worse.

They experienced how dementia can affect everyday tasks such as getting dressed and this was demonstrated by the students trying to put on a shirt whilst wearing glasses to obscure their vision and gloves to mimic limited motor skills. They all agreed how difficult this made a usually simple task. They were also shown how to approach a person in a care home as for many of them this will be their first experience of this environment.

The students will be helping to ease the loneliness of residents in the care home whilst gaining valuable life skills and making new friends. We will keep you updated on their progress.

Mrs Hayes, Careers Administrator