Elizabeth Anderson
Founder
Dr Elizabeth Anderson trained as a research psychologist, specialising in dementia in the late 1990’s when she completed her doctorate at the University of Oxford. Prior to founding The Memory Tree she worked as a Lecturer in Dementia Studies at the University of Bradford (2002 – 2008) and then as a freelance Dementia Care Trainer (2008 – 2011).
Elizabeth was motivated to leave her professional work because she felt there was a lack of knowledge in local communities that was contributing to people feeling under-confident when it came to supporting their neighbours or friends living with dementia. To find out whether she could use her knowledge to help Elizabeth worked voluntarily in her local community during 2011 to meet people with dementia and their carers, find out about their needs and the gaps in local service provision; the main gap was for what we have called a Memory Club – a place where the person with dementia and the carer could go together but still get some time apart.
