“Team Brean” celebrate becoming Dementia Friends

“Team Brean” celebrate becoming Dementia Friends as Holiday Resort Unity adds to its Accessibility and Inclusivity status”

On Tuesday 20th March, 40 team members from across Holiday Resort Unity, Brean Leisure Park, Brean Play and Brean Splash undertook their training to become Dementia Friends.

850,000 people in the UK alone are diagnosed as having dementia, and with the popularity of the staycation and rise in multi-generational holidays, they are seeing an increase in visitors within the age range most likely to be diagnosed with the condition.

All team members already receive basic accessibility awareness training in their induction, and each year key management and supervisory staff also receive health and wellbeing training which covers a wide range of issues related to positive mental health. In 2017 Holiday Resort Unity also invested in fully accessible units, adapted to suit those with physical disabilities, with lowered appliances and work surfaces, widened doorways, ramps, hoists and adapted wet rooms. They also picked up the silver award for Access & Inclusivity at last year’s Bristol, Bath and Somerset Tourism Awards.

Sarah House said:

“Being a family business, ensuring that we are able to accommodate guests of all ages and meet their needs, whatever these may be, is very important to us. It was great that so many of our team members wanted to be included in the training from across different areas and different departments.

Being such a large resort with multiple facilities, it is extremely important that our team members can recognise people that may be lost, confused or experiencing difficulty.

This is not just about us supporting our holidaymakers, it is also about supporting our local community and our local economy. People with dementia will always travel with at least one other person, and will go out locally whilst staying with us to eat, sightsee and partake in other activities.

Thank you to John Hardy from Bridgwater Dementia Action Alliance for coming along and running the training session for us and we look forward to hosting further sessions going forward”