There is a friendship revolution happening in dementia care across the country. Since the birth of the Respite Ministry in 2012 at a southern church in Montgomery, Alabama, their outreach to friends and neighbors living with dementia has been innovative and all welcoming. Originally a faith-born ministry, Respite's place in the community and now the world has been an open-arms embrace--a great welcoming to friends, neighbors, and strangers of any ethnicity or faith who are living with dementia of any variety. Respite is mainly staffed with volunteers. Director Daphne Johnston calls these volunteers the forerunners in dementia care the force that drives this friendship revolution. "In the Respite care environment everyone is a volunteer. Everyone needs help. Everyone is needy because he or she needs to either receive help or give help." Daphne Johnston knows that "Volunteers make a Respite community thrive in any locale. It is an adaptable model that can be tailored to your community and fit your resources and gifts. This book Reclaiming Joy Together is the current summary of what we at Respite have learned, become, and it explains our vision for the future. The model is now replicated in 17 other Respite programs with modifications for their own local neighborhood. Different names are chosen by each community, but the core values of volunteer Respite are all guided by one driving purpose: to come alongside others who need the help of neighbors and new friends." Daphne Johnston explains how this friendship revolution began: "My boss at the time and mentor Bishop Lawson Bryan asked me to create a business plan to establish a faith community at our church. He felt that people who have been worshipping and fellowshipping in their home church shouldn't have to be excluded when they developed any illness or even dementia. The vision originated with and was inspired by Lawson Bryan, and with his guidance and encouragement, I just started asking people to help. They got on board in a big way." As a result of Respite's individual story, the global narrative of dementia care began to change. "When people first hear the diagnosis of dementia, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, they brace for what they assume will become an overwhelming tsunami--a flood of worry and work that will overtake and erode all normalcy and subsume a quality of life that can never be had again. That doesn't have to be true," Daphne asserts. "The diagnosis of dementia is like other kinds of diagnoses that something is now wrong that needs to be tended. We simply need to provide a kind of care tailored to the needs of people with memory or reasoning impairment, which vary significantly depending upon the person." About Daphne Johnston: After serving in long-term care administration for 15 years, Daphne Johnston accepted the challenge in 2012 at the First United Methodist Church to develop the Respite Ministry for families affected by Alzheimer's in the tri-county area of Montgomery, Alabama. Since then, Daphne has helped to plant the volunteer-driven model in 17 different program sites in AL, FL, and GA. Her mission is to help individuals with dementia and their family members find purpose, dignity, and opportunity to serve their community while living with new life challenges. Daphne and her husband Frank make their home in Montgomery, Alabama and have two children: Bo and Kathleen. She is an avid reader and tennis player.
