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Dementia Care Partnership (DCP), formerly Dementia Care Initiative (DCI), was founded in 1993 by carers and former carers with the support of health and social services to develop services for people with dementia and their carers. It is now the largest specialist dementia service provider in Newcastle. The same carers became the Board of Trustees, ensuring DCP remains a truly carer-led organisation.
At that time, carers, frustrated with services which were not accessible or responsive to the needs of their relatives with dementia, identified the urgent need for: flexible services at home to promote independence; day support services offering stimulating activities; Independent supported living houses as alternative to residential care; and support for carers through timely, jargon-free information, help-lines and, crucially, short break services.
People with dementia, of all ages too, felt powerless about ‘being put into an old folks home’ and expressed their desire to remain in their own homes and communities. There was an urgency for people with early onset dementia to have services which responded to their individual needs. Disappointment was also conveyed by older people from the black and minority ethnic communities as, despite consultation about their needs over a period of twenty years, services still remained unresponsive to diversity and insensitive to their culture.
Out of this came our vision - to be a market leader in offering replicable, specialist and alternative services in dementia/mental health care.
Our Mission - Delivering Client-led services.
Our Aims
- To enable people with dementia and other health related problems to remain in their own homes or in home-like settings in the community, if that is their choice.
- To provide emotional, practical and social support to their carers, and any necessary information and training, relative to their care needs.
- To provide training with a person-led approach to care, applying high standards of quality assurance and close adherence to equal opportunities legislation.
Our Objectives
To promote independent living by providing
In 1995, following requests from carers, DCP extended its services to include older people experiencing mental health problems other than dementia. From this we developed our four target groups who are:
- Younger people who have dementia and their carers
- Older people with dementia and their carers
- Older people with other mental health problems and their carers.
- People from the black and minority ethnic communities with dementia/other mental health problems and their carers
In 2000, to give recognition of the fact that the success of DCP could not have been achieved without the partnership relationship with clients, carers and key stakeholders the name of DCI was changed to DCP.
Since its inception DCP has set out to achieve the objectives it set when the charity was formed. Details of which can be found in ‘Track Record’.
In August 2005, DCP will be completing a major £2.6m capital development to be named the Bradbury Centre. DCP will be celebrating its achievement in completing all objectives set in 1993, at the official opening of the centre by the Duchess of Northumberland.
To read more on our history, please check our download page.
(You will require the free
 Adobe Acrobat Reader which can be downloaded here).
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