A Guide for Creating Dementia Friendly Communities in Alberta

A Dementia Friendly Community provides community-based support and services through local action for those living with, or affected by, dementia. A Dementia Friendly Community can be determined by both the social environment and the physical environment of the community.

The main goals of a Dementia Friendly Community are:

• To build community capacity to support individuals to age-in-place and remain in the community for as long as possible
• To raise awareness of dementia with the aim to reduce stigma associated with dementia

With funding support from the Government of Alberta, Alberta Innovates and Alberta Health Services, The Brenda Strafford Foundation has created ‘A Guide for Creating Dementia Friendly Communities in Alberta.’ This guide is the culmination of a two-and-a-half-year Dementia Friendly Communities pilot project in Alberta led by The Brenda Strafford Foundation.

The Brenda Strafford Foundation documented their journey, and their lessons learned along the way during this pilot project, to create this guide as a locally sensitive, evidence-based approach for the development of Dementia Friendly Communities throughout the province. This resource provides localized information and best practices that individuals, businesses and civil society organizations can use to ensure their communities are dementia friendly.