National Lottery Community Fund supports Doing Dementia Differently

We are delighted to share that The National Lottery Community Fund has awarded Bright Shadow £404,097 over 3 years for our groundbreaking creative health programme Doing Dementia Differently, which will improve the quality of life, reduce isolation, and strengthen community support for people living with dementia and supporters across Kent and Medway.

Doing Dementia Differently builds on 17 years of Bright Shadow’s pioneering, specialist arts practice and more than 7 years of continuous delivery of our Zest Communities model – an innovative creative health approach that supports people living with dementia to live well, remain socially connected, and retain agency and purpose.

With National Lottery Community Fund support, we will:

• Deliver 4 weekly Zest Community arts groups in areas of high need
• Provide creative, relational respite for carers
• Strengthen community voice and self-advocacy through our Open Forums and Campfire Conversations
• Develop and share a Doing Dementia Differently Quality Framework
• Build organisational resilience to sustain and scale this work long-term

This programme responds directly to unmet need, widening health inequalities, and the lack of post-diagnostic support for people living with dementia.

Alongside our other related programmes, Zest at Home, Bright Times and Dementia Choruses, we are excited to be working with our partners to build a vibrant community of people living with and affected by dementia in Kent and Medway who are Doing Dementia Differently.

Thank you to the players of the National Lottery, without whom none of this would be possible; it really could be YOU who has changed a life by buying that ticket.

If you want to start Doing Dementia Differently, or would like to contribute to our community, please get in touch!