Charity celebrates its relaunch in Leamington

The launch of the Quality of Life Charitable Trust. Pictured are patron Lord Griffiths of Pembrey and Burry Port with broadcaster Liz Kershaw (left) who spoke at the event and Councillor Josie Compton (right), Portfolio Holder for Adult Social Care for Warwickshire County Council.

The Quality of Life Charitable Trust, formally the Orbit Charitable Trust, re-launched at an event hosted by solicitors Wright Hassall.

Guest speakers included broadcaster and Age UK Warwikshire patron Liz Kershaw and Orbit Group chief executive Paul Tennant, who addressed an audience drawn from local government, professional practices, churches and charities.

Since its, the Warwick-based trust has gifted tens-of-thousands of pounds to individuals and organisations across the region to improve people’s quality of life.

David Hucker, trust chairman, said: “Our work has been changing over the last year and we wanted a name to better reflect who we are and what we do now.

“The name reflects our new direction, focusing on services for older people and organisations that support them and we invited people to come and see what we’re about.”

In addition to providing financial help, the organisation has recently been advising small housing associations across the country on how to better serve and support people with dementia.

The Creating Dementia Friendly Organisations project has involved five associations over the course of the year, tracking how they have changed the way they work and recording the significant service improvements.

The results will be contained in a report and good practice guide to be made available next month to the 41,000 members of the Housing Learning and Improvement Network that has been supporting the Trust’s work.

It also provides a telephone alarm service in conjunction with Warwick District Council and is funding a new digital inclusion service called The IT Doctor, aimed at older people and to be run by Age UK Warwickshire.