Betty's Club: a warm and inviting space for those dealing with dementia

A club in Burnham Market focused on offering support, friendship and well-being to those with dementia and cognitive decline - and their families.

Sarah Reed comes to greet me at the door and it’s such a warm welcome the space is immediately inviting. She takes me through to the garden and shows me some of the plants people have been growing - some ripe tomatoes on vines. And she begins to describe the space she’s thoughtfully created and brought to life.

Firstly she wants to make it clear there are no patients, “I presented ideas to the doctors, to the trustees and I said what we need is not service users, not clients, not patients - I hate those words and so do people who come, we’ll call everybody a member then everybody’s equal, whether they’re a volunteer, a person with dementia or the carers. And they said that’s a lovely idea - get on with it!”

And she did. Betty’s Club is adjacent to the doctor’s surgery in Burnham Market, a space for local people with dementia or cognitive decline, and their carers. Last October it was a bare room overlooking a garden. And the room's evolved (and still is evolving) into a safe, stimulating and calming space - with a big table in the middle. “We do fortnightly coffee mornings or tea afternoons for the carers, they come in and chat around the table - always around the table as that’s the heart of the home isn’t it.”

It also offers learning workshops for caregivers, where experts come in to chat. A recent one about compassion fatigue. “It’s a huge job looking after someone with dementia, especially around the clock and many have no experience of dementia before,” Sarah adds, “We’ve had wonderful feedback, one caregiver saying ‘this place is magic’.”

The club is about listening, friendship and offering things to do. It starts with life story sessions, to get to know people. And the activities are picked by the members, “Art and singing, they kept coming out on top - and gardening. So we do art club on Wednesdays and singing on Fridays. The local vicar has asked if we’d like to do a carol concert and I said bring it on! So we might develop a Betty’s choir.”

Sarah wants to make it clear that nobody has to have a medical diagnosis, “If they need what we offer they’re welcome to come and join in.” Her background is in dementia communications (she’s being modest), she’s actually an award-winning dementia and communication specialist. Her interest began when her own mother was diagnosed.

Sarah's older brother with their mother Mary 

“My mum Mary, the lovely Mary, she was 79 when she got dementia. I was in my late 40’s when she was diagnosed and I suddenly thought I’m going to lose her and there's so much I don't know about her, and I thought I’m going to make it my mission to get to know as much as possible.

And if I want to get to know her I need to know about dementia, so I put myself through a BA and MA and finally research on dementia. I created a set of cards that I could use to have conversations with her. From the period of her life that she’d remember - like rationing and the war - and things that a woman of her age would have encountered.”

Mary and Sarah in 2003

How wonderful to be passing on all that knowledge and experience for the benefit of so many.  We also need to talk about Betty - who’s made all this possible.  Betty Sargent, who lived in Docking and died in 2016, and left a sum of money.

“It built this and the garden. It’s been very challenging to find out anything about her at all, there are no photographs. We know Betty got dementia in the end, her husband had died and she was on her own and had a dog called James, sadly she had no other family. We’ve asked around Docking, people who might have known her, but she was an extremely private woman. She was just a mystery.”

A mystery who’s left an incredible legacy behind. “Everything we do is honouring her memory, her tremendous generosity. I love everything about this, I love Betty, we called it Betty’s Club because it’s from her to her.”  At the moment there are around 30 members, but there’s the capacity to double the numbers.

Sarah goes on to describe her 9 volunteers as 'lovely', “Members that have dementia say things like, ‘I don’t know why I’m here but this is lovely and I want to come again’.  That makes us happy. What I want and what any of the volunteers want, is to feel that they’ve made a difference to people’s lives, and I’m seeing that. If a caregiver comes in and they’ve had a bad night, and they’re stooped and look a bit forlorn, by the time they leave they’ll be chatty - their eyes come to life and you can’t not love that can you.”

The hope for the future is to have Betty’s Clubs all over Norfolk, and to use them as dementia research hubs. For now though Sarah and her team are concentrating on the official opening day (23rd of September). As I leave Sarah says, “I love people, I love the members - they’re very important.  And I want everybody to feel really welcome.”

I think they picked the right person for the job.