Michael Verde, an advisor to St Christopher's, will be speaking about a different way of thinking about dementia and communicating with those who have dementia. 

• In which people with dementia feel connected and valued

• Those concerned about them feel comfortable and confident in building and maintaining these important relationships

• Professionals involved in their care augment their skills to include listening

• Society moves away from feeling frightened about the big D to new recognition of the opportunities available to its citizens to reach out to people with dementia to mutual benefit

Tickets cost £5. Bursary tickets are available - please email [email protected] for more information.

About the speaker

Michael Verde founded Memory Bridge in 2003. To date, Memory Bridge has connected over 8,000 people with and without dementia to each other in one-to-one relationships.

Michael speaks across the world on the subjects of literature, world religions, and communicating with people with dementia. His clients include Northern Trust Bank; Chevron; St. Christopher’s Hospice, England; Alzheimer’s Association of Australia; the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Vero Beach Museum. Michael Verde grew up in east Texas, where he played football, went to church, raised show pigs, and read so much it alarmed his high school counsellor. Before graduating from high school, he won Guideposts magazine’s National Youth Writing Contest, and was elected president of American Legion’s Boy’s Nation. Michael graduated with honors from the University of Texas’s prestigious Plan II Honors program. He earned a M.A. in literary studies from the University of Iowa, and a M.A. in theology from the University of Durham, England, where he graduated at the top of his international class.

Michael taught English for 10 years. At Lamar University where he began his teaching career he was named Teacher of the Year in his third year of teaching. In 2011, Memory Bridge was awarded Indiana University’s Educational Peace Prize to bring the Memory Bridge school initiative to South Africa. He is currently pursuing a PhD in the area of empathetic education at Indiana University.