Bringing Our Community Together to Talk About Dementia
In 2025, Positive Network Community Project was proud to support an important initiative that brought together the community, healthcare professionals, and researchers to talk openly about dementia.
The Dementia Research Café, developed in partnership with the NIHR St George’s Clinical Research Facility, created a welcoming environment where members of the African-Caribbean community could learn more about dementia, ask questions and share their experiences.
For Positive Network, this was about much more than a meeting or information session. It was about building trust, breaking down barriers and making sure that our communities have a voice in dementia research.
Making Dementia Conversations More Accessible
Dementia can affect individuals, families and entire communities. However, conversations about dementia and participation in research do not always reach every community equally.
The Dementia Research Café helped create a space where people could discuss dementia in an environment that felt welcoming, familiar and respectful of their cultural experiences.
This was particularly important because St George’s identified a significant gap in representation. In 2024, only 3.5% of patients at its dementia clinic were from African or African-Caribbean backgrounds, despite these communities experiencing higher rates of dementia.
The café therefore provided an opportunity to help address this imbalance by raising awareness, building confidence and encouraging greater participation in dementia research.
Positive Network at the Heart of the Community
Positive Network Community Project has worked with communities for many years, with a particular focus on bringing generations together, reducing loneliness and social isolation, and promoting physical, social and emotional wellbeing.
The organisation's involvement in the Dementia Research Café reflects this wider commitment.
By working alongside healthcare professionals and researchers, Positive Network helped create a bridge between the community and the health and research system.
Community members could ask questions, discuss concerns, and learn more about how dementia research works.
Most importantly, people were given the opportunity to have their voices heard.
Challenging Mistrust and Breaking Down Barriers
One of the project's most important aspects was creating an environment where people felt comfortable talking about dementia.
For some communities, previous experiences of healthcare services can affect confidence and trust. Positive Network's community work provides a familiar setting where people can have honest conversations and ask questions without feeling judged.
Positive Network's wider work has also involved listening to older African and Caribbean communities about their health and wellbeing needs. In 2025, South West London Integrated Care System research involving Positive Network highlighted concerns including previous poor experiences with health services and distrust of healthcare services.
The Dementia Café provided another opportunity to address these issues through conversation, information and community engagement.
A Major Achievement in 2025
The work was recognised when the Dementia Research Café was shortlisted for a 2025 Nursing Times Award in the Clinical Research Nursing category.
The recognition celebrated collaboration between St George’s research and dementia teams, the Chaplaincy team, and the Positive Network Community Project.
Being shortlisted for a national award was an important achievement for everyone involved and demonstrated the value of community-led approaches to health research.
Giving Our Community a Voice
Positive Network believes that people should not simply be recipients of health information. They should also have the opportunity to influence the conversations, research and services that affect their lives.
The Dementia Café helped make that possible.
It gave community members the opportunity to:
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Learn more about dementia and dementia research.
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Ask questions directly to healthcare professionals and researchers.
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Share their experiences and concerns.
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Build confidence around taking part in research.
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Help researchers better understand the needs of African-Caribbean communities.
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Connect with other community members.
Continuing the Conversation
The success of the 2025 Dementia Research Café helped lay the foundation for further community engagement.
The partnership continued into 2026, when Positive Network peer researchers helped co-design another Dementia and Arthritis Research Café in Balham. The event brought community members and clinicians together for practical advice, myth-busting and open conversations about research.
This demonstrates the importance of building long-term relationships between communities, healthcare professionals and researchers.
Positive Network – Making a Difference
The Dementia Café is a great example of what can happen when a community organisation and healthcare professionals work together.
For Positive Network, it means ensuring our communities are informed, heard,** and represented**.
It is about creating safe spaces for important conversations.
It is about challenging inequalities.
And it is about ensuring the voices of our older people and wider African-Caribbean community are part of the future of dementia care and research.
