Do you have first-hand experience of dementia? Help shape our work through Dementia Voice, and use your experience to ensure everything we do reflects the needs of people affected by dementia.

Sign up

If you would like to use your interests, talents or experiences to influence our work, please complete our form. This will help us match you to the right opportunities for you.Once we receive the form, one of our Dementia Voice team will get in touch with you, to find out more about you as a person and help you plan together about the kinds of ways you would be interested in getting involved.  

Who can get involved in dementia voice opportunities?

You need to have first-hand lived experience of dementia - whether you have a diagnosis, or are family, friends, or a community group leader for someone who does. 

How can you get involved?

You can get involved from where you are - no need to travel. You can choose to get involved for just a few minutes at a time, or longer - we have opportunities big and small. You choose whether to accept particular invitations - we hope you will say yes! Your time and energy are precious so we won't mind that sometimes you need to say no or even take a break for a while. 

What happens after I complete the Dementia Voice sign up to get involved from?

We’ll provide a named Society Contact for you and support to help you develop your skills and confidence as you get involved with us.  

Example of opportunities 

Media

Help people learn from your experiences by sharing them, either through film, radio interviews, TV, social media or a newspaper. Share your experience of dementia with us if you are interested in telling your story through these channels.

You might like to write something for the Alzheimer's Society blog on our website. You can tell people about your life with dementia in any way you wish - you can even express yourself through poetry, photographs of things you've made, or share a song you've written. Get more information and submit your story to our blog team.

Training our staff and volunteers

Sharing your personal experiences can have a huge impact on staff and volunteers. Opportunities might include 

• dialling in to a virtual discussion
• doing a chat-show type interview in a webinar
• presenting a slot about yourself
• sharing your story through photographs and quotes for e-learning
• sharing your story through a film about your experiences.
• attending a session in person (when it's safe enough to do so again).

Recruit our staff and volunteers

We want to be there for anyone affected by dementia. We do that through our people, so it's only right that people affected by dementia help choose our employees and volunteers. Our experience is that our best recruitment decisions came when we involve people affected by dementia in the recruitment process. There's lots of ways to get involved, to suit your time and preferences. Opportunities may include

• helping us decide what skills and knowledge someone needs to do a particular job.
• helping us write the job advertisement to attract the best candidates
• helping us decide what questions we ask candidates at interview.
• helping us about a task that enables candidates to demonstrate their skills
• being a member of the interview panel.

Research 

Ways people choose to get involved in research include:

• co-production projects with researchers and user experience designers. These are often aimed at helping people to live better with dementia day to day, whether in their own home, or in care settings.
• testing and reviewing products researchers are developing. This can help move ideas from small pilot projects, into the wider community, so that lots of people affected by dementia can benefit from them.
• we have limited places on our Research Network to help us decide which research on dementia projects we fund, and monitor research that is in progress. 

If you would like to take part in research studies as participants, you can register your interest in Join Dementia Research. This is a UK-based service that helps match individuals with studies that are taking place in their area.

Public speaking

Hearing from a person affected by dementia speak about their experiences is a powerful way to connect with an audience. If you enjoy giving talks or want to gain experience in this area, we have many opportunities as we run conferences and a range of events. Sign up to hear about these opportunities.

Groups 

We have many types of groups that influence our work. Our main network of groups is called Focus on Dementia. There are other types of groups set up to influence certain projects. If this is something you would be interested in hearing about, you can sign up to hear about these opportunities.