Media News Updates Announcements Sizzling Bacon comes to Schools this September! Sizzling Bacon comes to Schools this September! We're really pleased to announce that Outside Lives has received funding for another exciting dementia awareness project! Thanks to funding received from DVSC (Denbighshire Voluntary Services Council), Outside Lives is once again collaborating with brilliant Author, Anne Scott to bring her wonderful book, 'Sizzling Bacon', to life in local classrooms. If you aren't aware of the book yet, Sizzling Bacon tells the story of Evie and her Mummy, and was written by Anne to explain dementia to her own children following her diagnosis. Working with Anne is her daughter and carer Evie, long-time friend of Outside Lives and dementia activist, Teresa Davies, and National Theatre Wales practitioner, Anastacia Ackers. Over the past few months, they have been meeting via Zoom to create ways to bring the book to life and also doing some brilliant interviews! We took some time to ask them all for a few of their thoughts on this exciting new project, bringing dementia awareness to children in a sensitive and easy to understand way... Author, Anne told us how thrilled she was that Outside Lives were helping Sizzling Bacon to "start school" in September! "This wonderful project will help children and families learn more about dementia and also lessen the fear and stigma surrounding the issue". Anne's daughter, Evie Barker who looks after her Mum is equally excited for this new, important progression to the Sizzling Bacon story and highlights the need for understanding among school-aged children, some of whom may be supporting family members without the support of their peers who may not understand their situation. "As a young carer, I'm so pleased to be helping other children to understand dementia. The Outside Lives schools project will be amazing!" As numbers of people living with dementia grow, it is something that many children may experience at some point in their lives; be that with a family member, a family friend or a neighbour perhaps. Having an awareness of what dementia is has become incredibly important and we hope this project will allow school children to develop that understanding in a gentle and non-scary way. Teresa Davies (or 'Dory', as some of you may know her), starred in our 'Hopeful Gardener' dementia project, which also featured Anne's book, bringing in pieces of the story into the video project. "It made us aware of how important it is for children to have an understanding of dementia and for schools to participate in this project, bringing a fun, but also educational approach to understanding what dementia is and how it affects a person's brain." Anastacia Ackers has been instrumental in bringing our dementia projects to life over the past 12-months. Her compassion for and understanding of the subject is inspiring and teamed with her professional skills, we've been able to create some beautiful pieces of work that help to raise awareness sensitively, in a way that lets us see the person behind the condition, giving them the voice which is so important, and powerful. "Anne's book is just brilliant and so to be given the chance to bring it to life in the classroom is amazing. We're having a lot of fun exploring what this will look like!" - Anastacia Ackers We look forward to announcing further information on this wonderful project very soon! Thank you to our funders! Without the support of DVSC this wonderful project would not be possible. We are so grateful for their ongoing support.