Best Practice in Dementia Care Program 2016
Published: 22 Dec 2016
As part of Life Care’s commitment to Dementia excellence Life Care introduced the Best Practice in Dementia Care accredited program which Shirley designed. This program is 6 modules undertaken over 6 months and we started the program in February 2016 with Shirley training 12 staff from across Life Care as facilitators who then delivered the program over 6 months to approximately 8 staff each. The Care Coordinators and some of the Managers also undertook the program so that they could better support their staff, at the end of the program each participant has to complete a reflective exercise which is sent to DSDC to be marked. Shirley returned to Adelaide in November to present some of Life Care staff their certificates in recognition of successfully completing the Best Practice in Dementia Care Program. Over the past 6 months more than 100 Life Care staff have participated in the Best Practice in Dementia Care program, run by the Life Care trained Facilitators. The program is made up of 6 modules, which include:
1. The person and dementia
2. Person-centred care and building meaningful relationships
3. Communication and behaviour
4. Support for the person with dementia, family and carers
5. Health and wellbeing
6. Legal aspects and issues in relation to dementia
Each module in this program is designed to help the participant think about how they respond to the person with dementia. Underpinning each one is a person-centred approach to care, which focuses on the needs of the individual. On completion of this program participants are able to:
- Exhibit a greater understanding of dementia and its impact on the individual
- Engage in a reflective evaluation of caring interventions and change their practice accordingly
- Implement a person-centred approach to care
- Demonstrate evidence-based caring interventions
- Demonstrate a more expansive use of communication skills when interacting with and understanding the needs of people with dementia
- Recognise the role of the carer/ family, their needs and possible support networks
The feedback from both the Facilitators and participants of the first round of the program have been overwhelmingly positive and we look forward to running the next program in 2017.
Although Shirley has returned to the UK, Life Care continues to be in close contact with regular updates and information sharing between the two organisations as part of our ongoing partnership.