May madness

It feels like I say this quite often, but as the Association for Dementia Studies is doing a lot at the moment, we thought it would be useful to take stock and draw breath in this week’s blog. Here’s an overview of what’s going on.

Education and training

Our PGCert students have recently submitted their final assignments so our lecturers are busy marking. Before we know it, we’ll be welcoming a new cohort of students on our September modules! If you would like to be one of them, please have a look at our website or watch our new short video. A reminder to current and former students – you are eligible for the Hennell Award so why not apply!?

The next cohort of the 5-week Meeting Centre online training starts later this month, and this time is being facilitated by Kirrie Connections. If this is too short notice, don’t worry, we’ll be running another cohort in July. Have a look at our website for full details and how to register for either course. We’re also working on developing Meeting Centre training for other audiences, so keep an eye open for further updates.

Conferences and events

In Dementia Action Week we’ve got information stands at the Leominster Dementia Conference and The Worcester Dementia Action Alliance Awareness Event (both on 16^th May), as well as running a dementia awareness and information session for staff here at the University of Worcester on 17^th May supported by having a stand in the St John’s campus reception area.

We’ll also be at the Alzheimer’s Society Annual Conference in London on 18^th May, presenting at the Cornwall Dementia Conference down in Newquay on 19^th May and presenting at the 23rd International Conference on Integrated Care in Belgium later in the month. Busy times!

We’re also planning our Get Real event to launch and share the findings. Although it’s not until 12^th July, our plans are well underway, and if you would like to attend you can register here. As part of the event we’ll also be displaying our Meeting Centres family blanket so don’t forget to send in your squares!

Link to Meeting Centre Blanket flyer

If that wasn’t enough, we’ll be writing abstracts to submit to various conferences such as UK Dementia Congress later in the year to share findings from a whole host of our research projects.

Research and consultancy

We’ve got several research projects underway at various stages, so we’ll be working on these as well as writing articles for recently completed projects. Bid writing is also taking place with several bids taking shape quite nicely (fingers crossed!).

A work in progress is the development of an app version of the environmental assessment tools. The app is not quite at the point of being made available, but it’s not far away – watch this space.

We’re also working on a series of short videos relating to Meeting Centre data collection, both to help Meeting Centre staff understand what’s involved but also to help explain it to members and carers and encourage them to get involved. It’s another ‘coming soon’ situation, but hopefully the videos will be helpful to everyone.

Phew! Same again next month?

Championing physical activity – reflections

This week we hand over to Dr Chris Russell to hear his reflections on working alongside practitioners offering physical activity to people affected by dementia. It’s particularly fitting as today just happens to be World Day for Physical Activity…

In mid-March the third run of the online course we’ve been offering to practitioners from a wide range of backgrounds, aiming to enhance their confidence and ability to offer physical activity to people affected by dementia, came to its conclusion. It is such a privilege to be working alongside colleagues who are so motivated and keen to do a good job. It is positive because we know physical activity can and should be part of everyday life for people living with dementia. Sadly it is often not, and this was a core motivation to develop and offer the course. We believe it can help close that gap.

Physical activity doesn’t have to be something which is highly organised, or in any way involve individuals wearing lycra! (Although, of course, if that’s what people want that’s absolutely fine). Physical activity is broadly defined as any movement that gets people’s heart rate moving in the right direction. So it can apply to a wide range of activities and pastimes, and for us that means we can link it to leisure and the sorts of interests people have, or things they may want to try. Following on from that, the course is designed to encourage participants to think about the people they work alongside and use what people bring as their motivation for taking part to offer them something really enjoyable, as well as being useful.

Teaching Team Award

We’re very pleased and proud to announce that our Module Leads on the Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) in Person-Centred Dementia Studies have received the Teaching Team Award from the University of Worcester. This award celebrates excellence and recognises outstanding practice in teaching and in supporting and leading learning. It also promotes innovative, inspiring and excellent practice which is outstanding in its impact to enhance and inspire student learning. The Association for Dementia Studies (ADS) as a whole is quite modest, so it was a big step for the PGCert team to put themselves forward for the award. I think we can safely say that they’re glad they did!

The application was driven by Teresa Atkinson, Module Lead for two of the PGCert modules (Enabling environments for people living with dementia, and Dementia in the family context). She found out what the team needed to do, and brought together information from Dr Chris Russell (PGCert Programme Lead and Module Lead for Engagement and empowerment in dementia studies), Nicola Jacobson-Wright (Module Lead for Person-Centred Leadership: The VIPS approach, and Expert practice in delivering person-centred dementia care), Mary Bruce (Module Lead for Supporting people with advanced dementia, and Applying the Admiral Nurse Competency Framework), and Jen Bray (technical support to help develop course content and upload it to the teaching platform Blackboard).

A period of change

As usual, there’s a lot going on within the Association for Dementia Studies at the moment, so to help you (and us!) keep track here’s a brief update.

Coming to an end

We’ve got a few projects due to finish in the next couple of months, such as:

• The Herefordshire Dementia Voices (HDV) evaluation, which is looking at the extent to which the HDV project met its intended outcomes of finding and hearing the voices of people affected by dementia. If you’d like to share your views on this project, you don’t have long – our online survey closes very soon so don’t miss out!
• Worcester Life Stories, which comprises two online platforms (Know Your Place and Life Stories Herefordshire and Worcestershire) has been the subject of a few previous blogs, and again you don’t have much time to share your views and feedback with us using the following surveys.
  • Link to Know Your Place Worcester survey
  • Link to Life Stories Herefordshire and Worcestershire survey
• The Get Real with Meeting Centres project is in its final phase of pulling all of our findings together and working out how to present and share them with different audiences. We’re consulting with various stakeholders to make sure we get it right, and have some exciting plans for creating both booklets and videos to explore different ways of making our findings accessible.
• The ‘Embed’ phase of our Meeting Centres work is due to end soon, but have no fear! We’ll be continuing to work on Meeting Centres, primarily focusing on keeping our existing Meeting Centre network going and continuing to support new Meeting Centres to get up and running.
• The DemECH project which has been looking at Supporting People Living with Dementia In Extra Care Housing is in the reporting phase, and we hope to be able to share the outputs with you in the near future.

Beyond research, our September cohort of students on our Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies has recently submitted their final assignments, so best of luck to everyone!

Course options – what can you study?

Last week our blog told you that if you’ve studied with us on any of our courses you were eligible to be nominated for the Hennell Award, so this week we thought we’d tell you a bit more about the courses themselves! Using the list from last week:

Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies

Hopefully it won’t be a surprise to any of you that we offer a fully online Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies, as we’ve mentioned it just a few times in previous blogs! We’ve got a range of modules available covering different aspects of dementia, and different ways to study.

• You can do the whole Postgraduate Certificate (60 credits)
• You can do the Postgraduate Award, which is a double module (30 credits)
• You can study an individual module that particularly takes your interest (15 credits). If you enjoy it, you can always go on to do other modules or complete the Certificate, so it’s a non-committal way to see how you get on.

Our new cohort of students has just started, but the next modules will begin in September. If it’s the sort of thing you’ve been considering, or maybe you’ve got a few questions to work out if it’s right for you, please have a look at our website and get in touch. You’re not committing to anything, so it won’t hurt to ask, and there’s no such thing as a silly question!

Hennell Award Launch 2023

We’ve had blog posts about The Hennell Award before, most recently announcing the 2021-2022 winner Stu Wright, and we’re pleased to announce that nominations for the 2022-2023 Award are now being accepted.

The Hennell Award celebrates innovation and excellence in dementia care, and is opened to anyone who has taken part in one of our education or training courses. Have a look at the list below and see if they apply to you.

• Our Postgraduate Certificate modules – have you taken your learning back into practice and made a difference to the people you work with? Maybe you’ve studied on our ‘Enabling Environments’ module, made your care environment more dementia friendly and seen the impact of those changes. Maybe the ‘Advanced Dementia’ module has inspired you to think differently about pain assessment.
• We deliver courses for professional groups and organisations, such as care providers – think about what’s changed as a result of those courses. Maybe you’ve carried out a VIPS assessment using the Care Fit for VIPS toolkit and have made changes based on your findings. Maybe you’ve been able to share your learning with colleagues.
• If you’ve been on our Meeting Centres online training you’re also eligible – have you set up a Meeting Centre following the course? Maybe you’ve been able to measure the impact that your Meeting Centre is having on the members and carers who attend. Maybe you’ve used what you learnt on the course to overcome a particular challenge.
• Last, but by no means least, you can also be part of the Hennell Award if you’ve been on our Championing Physical Activity for People Affected by Dementia course (please check with us for latest dates and fees) – have you noticed a difference in your practice? Maybe you’ve introduced physical activity into your existing work with people with dementia. Maybe you’ve adapted your exercise class to make it more dementia friendly and inclusive.

Basically, there are multiple ways that you could be our next Hennell Award winner, and we want to hear from you. You can nominate yourself (don’t be shy, why not celebrate and be proud of what you’re achieving?!), or you can nominate someone else if you know a friend or colleague who is doing great work and deserves to be recognised. Find out more about previous winners and also get a copy of the nomination form from our website.

You’ve got until 3^rd July to get your nominations in so there’s plenty of time to get thinking, but don’t leave it until the last minute!

Having an impact

Starting a new year can often make people a bit reflective, and here at the Association for Dementia Studies we’re no different. We’ve been involved in numerous research projects over the years, with a lot of that research feeding into and underpinning our education. While we’re proud of what we’ve done, it tends to be a bit odd when a project finishes as we don’t always get to see what happens next. Who reads our reports and takes any recommendations on board? Who uses our resources and makes a change as a result? Who takes their learning back to the workplace and makes a change to their practice or work setting? Who benefits from what we’re doing and are they local, national or even international?

Basically, how do we know that we’re having an impact and how significant is that?

In terms of our education, we do get some feedback from students if their course involves completing a short project or if they apply for the Hennell Award where they are required to show what they’ve done as a result of being on one of our courses. With our research it can be trickier, especially if the output is a resource that can be freely downloaded. How can we reach people if we don’t know who they are? We often don’t have the time and resources to do any follow-up activities either, as other research projects have generally taken over.

Championing Physical Activity for People Affected by Dementia

This week we hand over to Dr Chris Russell who reflects on our online course ‘Championing Physical Activity for People Affected by Dementia’. Over to you Chris…

People affected by dementia (individuals living with dementia and also members of their family and close friends) want to continue doing things they have always enjoyed. Why would this not be the case? I know, because of research that we have completed here at the Association for Dementia Studies. This has explored activities that people can participate in perhaps for interest, for a sense of fun, or purpose, encapsulated by the term ‘leisure’. Such things contribute to making us who we are; they are part of everyday life.

Leisure includes activities as diverse as painting and listening to heavy metal music, with everything in between (and extending out on both sides!). It forms part of the jigsaw of everyday life. What one person enjoys might not be the preference of the next, but there should be something there for everyone. Taking part in physical activity is an aspect of this jigsaw, and physical activity is brimming with diversity too as it can include going for a walk, dancing, playing table tennis, going to the gym etc. It might not be every person’s first preference (although for many it is in one shape or form), but when one considers just how varied these activities can be, it is a feature of most of our lives.

UK Dementia Congress 2022

After a pause due to the pandemic the UK Dementia Congress was back to being held in person, and this year it took place at Aston University Conference Centre on 8^th-9^th November. Although it was a smaller affair that previously, it provided a great opportunity to get back to networking, and made it possible for many of the Association for Dementia Studies (ADS) team – past and present – to meet up en masse. (I’m not sure what the collective noun for a group of ADS colleagues would be, but perhaps it’s best not to go there!)

We had a good presence at the conference including:

• The opening address by Interim Director Dr Shirley Evans, followed by two of our PhD students Nathan Stephens and Rosemary Davies talking about their work so far.

The Hennell Award 2022

Everyone at the Association for Dementia Studies (ADS) is driven by the priority to do all we can to enable people with dementia and their close family and friends to enjoy lives of quality. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Hennell Award.   

The Hennell Award for Innovation and Excellence in Dementia Care (to give it its full title!) was launched in memory of the late Brian Hennell at the ADS 5th birthday celebration event on 14 May 2014. Brian’s wife June has acted as an ambassador for this award which recognises people who have made a significant contribution to promoting person-centred care.

Anyone who has studied on one of our many courses can enter the award. This year we were able to shortlist three amazing and innovative applications – all very different, but each one focused on enhancing the lives of individuals whom the entrants supported. You can read about the entries on our webpages.

Stu Wright, who won this year’s Hennell Award, impressed the judging panel with his “real-life plans and actions for improvement within care homes”, and his focus upon human rights and the needs and aspirations of people living with advanced dementia. We’re very pleased that Stu will be joining us at the upcoming UK Dementia Congress to talk about his work as part of a symposium about our education, so if you’re at Congress please do come along to hear more and congratulate Stu on his achievement.

It is such a great pleasure to be involved with the Hennell Award, knowing that the education we provide can help make a considerable difference to people’s lives. It is fantastic to be able to recognise our students for the contribution they make.   

Details will be posted in December about arrangements for the Hennell Award 2022/23. We are looking forward to receiving more great applications and recognising the impressive things going on to promote person-centred care and support across the world!