Thursday 27th June 2019 saw P4W officially launch its dementia-friendly services at Merkinch Community Centre in the heart of Inverness.

Following on from our successful applications for support from the Life Changes Trust and Paths for All Dementia Friendly Walking we were able to organise the launch event to tell assembled colleagues and other stakeholders about our health-walk plans along with the valuable work our transport service is already doing to support this client group.

The event was introduced by the P4W Chair Pam Courcha.

A keynote presentation was given by Gillian Councill from Alzheimer Scotland on the benefits of engaging with the natural environment for people with dementia - guests were able to watch some footage of Gillian's recent appearance on BBC Springwatch outlining the amazing work she has been doing - P4W has already started working in partnership with Gillian and Alzheimer Scotland and we are really looking forward to developing our work together further.

P4W Manager Robert Locke presented the launch of the new dementia friendly services along with staff members Lynne Bannister who leads on the new project and Fiona MacInnes the P4W Transport Co-ordinator.

They always say there's no such thing as a free lunch and this event was no different - we were very grateful for the focussed participation of everyone present in a workshop session where we wanted help in identifying priorities and gathering new ideas and views on where the project should be heading. The final exercise encouraged participants to tell P4W what they thought would be the 'key success' for the project over the next year. 

A really successful P4W event and it was great to have everyone along to take part!