Back in 2014 when the Association for Dementia Studies was celebrating its fifth birthday, June Hennell – one of our LINK group of experts by experience – launched The Hennell Award for Innovation and Excellence in Dementia Care in memory of her late husband Brian. As ADS has now been celebrating its tenth year, we thought we’d reflect on the award winners from the past five years.
What is the award for?
The award aims to recognise people who have made a significant contribution to promoting person-centred care, and celebrates the achievements of teams or individuals. As well as an overall winner, there are opportunities to acknowledge wider achievements by commending and highly commending people. Anyone who has attended an education course facilitated by ADS is eligible to nominate themselves or be nominated by someone else.
This includes our new distance learning Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies, so if you’re interested and think you’re work is positively affected by what you learn from us, you may want to find out more about the award.
Who won this year?
This year’s winner was Dr Clementinah Rooke who is a Senior Lecturer in Mental Health Nursing in the Department of Nursing and Midwifery School of Human and Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield. The judges were very impressed with the impact she had during a ‘tour’ of her home country Zimbabwe to raise awareness of dementia.
“Clementinah is clearly very motivated and driven. She persisted to make this awareness raising trip possible it has huge potential to improve the lives of people with dementia in Zimbabwe.” – the judges
Who were the previous winners?
2018 – Mary Tasker, Manager of the Hawthorns Care Home in Evesham, Worcestershire. Mary was recognised for her outstanding work to reduce the use of psychotropic medication within her care home and improve the lives of residents with dementia.
“Inspirational, flexible and creative. Above all caring and person centred. Well considered and presented, showed impact on resident, community and family.” – the judges
2016 – April Dobson, Head of Dementia Innovation at the Abbeyfield Society. April won for her work to embed the principles of VIPS and person-centred care into the Abbeyfield Society dementia strategy, and the practical steps taken to implement this including the ‘Breath of Fresh Air’ project.
“I hope that the research from Breath of Fresh Air will go on to shape how people look at dementia care, and that we continue to help those living with the condition get outside, to get fresh air, and to remain as independent, happy and empowered as they can.” – April
2015 – Christina Hulse, Dementia Lead at Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust. Christina was selected because of her work on falls and dementia, which was carried out as part of one of the dementia leadership courses delivered by ADS.
“This has given me a great insight into changing practice and as a result I have started to help make changes within my work role.” – Christina
2014 – Emma Hawk, Mental Health Care Home Specialist. Emma led on and produced a ‘Knowing Me’ patient passport document to be used collaboratively across two NHS Trusts in Oxfordshire. She also led a pilot of the document in the Trusts, which has now been approved for use as the standard tool to aid communication and improve person-centred care across the Trusts in Acute, Community and Mental Health settings.
“Excellent idea to create a document that can be used for all patients with issues around communication and therefore reduce some of the stigma associated with the label of dementia” – the judges
A full list of the winners and those commended or highly commended can be found on the ADS website. If you or someone you know has been on one of our courses and has done some great work as a result, the nominations for next year’s award are already open…
It’s great to see some of the work that has been done and makes us really proud that we’ve played a part in encouraging people to go out and make a change for people living with dementia. Congratulations to everyone.
Connect with ADS on twitter @DementiaStudies and on Facebook @adsuow
Association for Dementia Studies Blog 