Dementia Awareness Week begins tomorrow. Around the country, church initiatives large and small are helping people with this debilitating condition as well as their carers

It all started with an article in The Tablet. Two years ago, Maureen Knight, a parishioner in Liverpool, read a feature about what churches could do to help people with dementia; today, the Archdiocese of Liverpool has a host of initiatives to heighten awareness of the issue, and Maureen chairs its dementia working group, working closely with other volunteers, clergy as well as national and local charities.

The archdiocese has a dementia-friendly choir – around 800 people attended a special carol service at the cathedral – and 65 “dementia champions”, trained by the Alzheimer’s Society, who organise sessions in churches, hospitals, GPs’ surgeries, schools, in fact, anywhere where people gather. Yet Maureen says there is a lot more to do: “We are only scratching the surface. An awful lot of churches aren’t doing anything.”

Maria Collins, from Luton, began her campaign to improve life for those with dementia and their carers after her experience of looking after her mother. Maria is a senior nurse and was a director at Great Ormond Street Hospital when her mother, usually a quiet, kind person, began to suffer mood swings that led to erratic and occasionally aggressive behaviour. Maria found it problematic to get their GP to diagnose her mother’s dementia formally and, even when he did, she found it difficult to get help. The pressures of her job and caring for her mother left her close to despair.

“I was in a rush all the time just making sure the essentials were done, I was losing sight of being a daughter,” says Maria. “My mother would say: ‘You never have time to sit down and talk to me.’”