Bringing Community Back Together | S2E3 | Dr Katya Numbers & Monique Pockran |Co founders Dementia Care Social Club "I haven’t had to be myself for the past two years, I didn’t know that before I came here" .Dementia Care Social Club attendee What if dementia care wasn’t only about services, appointments and managing a diagnosis, butabout how we continue to include people in our families, friendships, neighbourhoods and communities? In this episode, Samantha Heron sits down with Dr Katya Numbers, researcher and educator at UNSW’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), and Monique Pockran, dementia doula and founder of Dahlia Dementia Guidance & Support. All 3 work in some capacity with people living with Dementia, and it has also touched all of their personal lives. Together, Katya and Monique are the co-founders of the Dementia Social Club a growing community bringing people living with dementia, carers, families, researchers, professionals and interested community members together to learn, connect and feel less alone. It is a place where, as they beautifully describe it, hard topics get soft landings. This conversation explores dementia well beyond a diagnosis: Katya shares how her professional workin memory and ageing became deeplypersonal when her own father began showing signs of dementia, and why those signs don’t always look like thememory loss we typically associate with the condition.Monique reflects on her father’s journeywith Alzheimer’s disease and how her experiences as both a daughter and dementia professional shaped her determination to help families navigate whatcomes after diagnosis.We exploreyounger onset dementia and why changes in behaviour, personality, spatialawareness or processing can sometimes be missed — particularly when dementiasimply isn’t on the radar.We unpack the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and why understanding themany different forms of dementia matters.We talk openly about the enormous gap that can exist after diagnosis: a family’s world has just changed, yet they may be sent home with information, referralsand a follow-up appointment months away, left trying to work out what comesnext.And then we talk about connection. A visitor described returning month after month because the community made her feel “seen and heard and full.” This is perhaps where the Dementia Care Social Club offers us a glimpse of something much bigger. Around the same table might be someone living with dementia, a daughter caring for a parent, a former carer, a researcher, a clinician or someone who simply wants to understand more, and you may have no idea who is who. Because, as Katyasays, “everybody in that room is the expert in a sense.” Their vision is for Dementia Care Social Clubs to grow beyond a single venue or two people hosting events into communities across Australia where people have the confidence andknowledge to talk openly about dementia and continue including people living with dementia in ordinary community life. This conversation feels very much at the heart of Bringing Community Back Together. Learn more about Katya, Monique and the Dementia Care Social Club: Dementia Care Social Club Dahlia DementiaGuidance & Support (Monique ) Katya Numbers UNSW Brain & Dementia information, support and free learning resources: UNSW Centre forHealthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) — resourceshttps://www.unsw.edu.au/cheba/about-us/resources Dementia Australiahttps://www.dementia.org.au/ Wicking DementiaResearch and Education Centre, University of Tasmania — free online dementia courses including Understanding Dementiahttps://www.utas.edu.au/wicking/study Connection Movements https://aiip.net.au/ https://goodflock.org/ Connect with host Samantha Heron