Busy times in May

It’s not like we sit around twiddling our thumbs at other times, but Dementia Action Week in May is looking particularly busy for us.

To start with, Age UK Herefordshire & Worcestershire and The Hive, Worcester are hosting a series of events and activities, and we’re part of three sessions.

On Monday 13^th May Thomas Morton will be talking about ‘Doing Things with Dementia: Exploring Support to Keep People Connected’. Dementia research in the news is nearly always about finding a cure, but just as important is how we can support the nearly 1 million people (and growing) who are living with dementia right now. While a diagnosis of dementia is life changing, people can still live full and active lives with the condition – but support in the community needs to be better. Thomas will talk about the work we do to improve this situation, including initiatives like Meeting Centres that aim to connect people to their communities and each other. He will talk about what Meeting Centres are, who can go and what people do there, as well as the wider research that the Association for Dementia Studies does – and opportunities for people to get involved!

You can attend the session for free but need to book a place here.

On Tuesday 14^th May Dr Chris Russell will be part of a ‘Behind the Cover’ session with his co-editors of the ‘Leisure and Everyday Life with Dementia’ book. The book examines leisure in the everyday lives of people living with dementia and challenges readers to consider the role of leisure activities beyond their potential for therapeutic benefit. Dr Russell leads the Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies, is the Patient and Public Involvement Lead for the ‘Get Real with Meeting Centres’ research project, and a Dementia Knowledge Exchange Peer Reviewer with the World Health Organization. He also runs a popular ‘Championing Physical Activity for People Affected by Dementia‘ course.

Again, places for the session are free but must be booked.

Our final talk at The Hive is also on Tuesday 14th May and is looking at ‘Dementia and the physical environment: what improvements can we make?’ In this session, Teresa Atkinson will be looking at how dementia and the physical environment interact. You’ll learn about some of the symptoms of dementia and the impact these can have, before exploring how dementia friendly design can help. The session will cover the principles of dementia friendly environments, helping you to be more aware of your surroundings, before focusing on changes that can be made within the home and also within the garden. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions and get information about useful resources. 

To book your free place use this link.

Our Meeting Centre family blanket will also be on display so if you haven’t seen it yet this could be a great opportunity.

If that wasn’t enough, we’re also part of the 2024 Pint of Science events in Worcester which takes place each evening from Monday 13^th to Wednesday 15^th May. Organised by the University of Worcester’s Doctoral School, the Pint of Science festival has academics providing talks on a wide variety of topics.

Thomas Morton will be presenting on 13^th May as part of a session on ‘Doing Health Research Differently’. If you missed his talk earlier in the day at The Hive, this is a second chance as he will be covering many of the same talking points. Tickets for each Pint of Science session are £5 and can be booked via their website.

Still want more? Maybe you’re not based in Worcester and are feeling a bit left out? Well, you’re in luck. On 17^th May (12 noon to 1pm), we will be hosting an online webinar that anyone can join! The webinar will be about ‘Past and Future of the Meeting Centre Support Programme in a contrasting economic context’ and we’re delighted that Sladana Pavkovic will be presenting. Sladana is from the University of Tasmania, and will delve into the Australian Meeting Centre Support Programme (MCSP), tracing its trajectory from pilot project to the establishment of two centres and subsequent challenges. She will discuss the evolving perspectives on revitalizing and adapting the MCSP model in a high-income Australian context, and the possibility to implement the program in a low-income setting such as Serbia.

Sladana is a third year PhD candidate in Dementia Studies at the Wicking Dementia Centre, University of Tasmania. Since 2020 and up to the present day, she has also taken the role of a part-time lecturer at the Wicking Centre. Since 2012 she has functioned as a “tele-care partner” and educator for her family residing in Serbia. Her primary aim has been to provide them with support and guidance in coping with her mother’s dementia. She has been involved in her care journey from the first onset of her symptoms, through the diagnostic process, active life with dementia, all the way to palliative care and her death in September 2023.

You can join the webinar using this link.

Phew! I think that’s more than enough for us to be getting on with, but who knows, we may find something extra to do that week!

Connect with ADS on twitter @DementiaStudies and on Facebook @adsuow 

We’re also on Instagram, Threads and LinkedIn so have a look and find us there too. 

Alumni celebration event

Earlier this month we were delighted to welcome back some of the alumni from our Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies to help us celebrate a wonderful milestone, the course has been running successfully for five years! Although the course is fully-online we decided to make the celebration event hybrid to enable some of the former students to meet in person – possibly for the first time! It was also great to see Dr Izzie Latham, one of our former Module Leads who has since moved on to pastures new, and our current External Examiner Dr Ian Davies-Abbott, but we were sad that a couple of other current and former colleagues weren’t able to join us for various reasons.

Everyone was welcomed to the event by Course Lead Dr Chris Russell who set the scene for the day and gave an update on the state of the field of dementia studies, covering some of the key topics that have arisen recently and highlighting new reports and resources that our former students might find interesting. He concluded his section by drawing attention to some of the achievements – both academic and extracurricular – of our students, including winning The Hennell Award, taking part in a 100km challenge and presenting their own research at a national conference.

This took us nicely into a session on ‘alumni reflections’ where students were encouraged to share how they have used their learning in practice since completing their studies. Facilitated by Nicola Jacobson-Wright, this session also formed part of a research project that Nicola is currently undertaking on ‘Exploring the impact of research based online pedagogy on dementia care practice’. We had two focus groups in the room and a third one for the online attendees to consider a series of questions posed by Nicola, and we got to hear loads of amazing examples of how our students are putting their learning into practice. Thank you to everyone for being so involved in this session and we look forward to seeing Nicola’s findings in due course.

After lunch, we switched from looking back to looking ahead as we welcomed Dr Shirley Evans, Director of the Association for Dementia Studies, to talk about plans for expanding our offering to become a Masters course and get feedback from the group regarding what they would like from a Masters. This will hopefully help us to develop a course that meets the needs of our students, and maybe we’ll even get some of our PGCert alumni coming back to continue their studies with us…

In the final formal part of the event, Izzie got everyone thinking about what they wish they’d known before starting their studies, and any advice or top tips they wanted to share with new students or those considering starting the PGCert. We had loads of great comments, so once we’ve had a chance to collate them we might be able to share them more widely.

At this point in the day we sadly had to say goodbye to our online attendees before concluding the event with a celebration cake (virtual cake doesn’t work very well!). We also had a chance to grab a group photo with our alumni before everyone headed off. It looked like some new connections were made between students and there was a lot of networking taking place, so who knows what our amazing students will go on to do next!

Course Lead Chris Russell, reflected:

“Everyone in our team is so proud of what the students on the course achieve. Person-centredness runs through their veins! It was such a great pleasure for us to welcome the alumni to the university, to catch up and look ahead to future success together!”  

Thanks to everyone for being part of our celebrations and we look forward to keeping in touch in the future.

If you’re considering starting your studies but have a few questions, why not be part of our online open evening which is taking place 3.30-6.00pm on 29^th April. To book a slot at the open evening, please contact Chris via dementia@worc.ac.uk

Connect with ADS on twitter @DementiaStudies and on Facebook @adsuow 

We’re also on Instagram, Threads and LinkedIn so have a look and find us there too. 

Looking forward to looking back

This week we hear from Dr Chris Russell about an exciting event we’ve got coming up soon. Over to you Chris…

Time flies when you’re having fun, and time has certainly shot by since 2019 because, in September, the fully online course we offer, the Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies, will be five years old! To celebrate this, in April, we’re holding an event for alumni from the course.

What tremendous students we have worked alongside over those years; drawn from health, social care and social work, housing, advocacy, and leisure settings (and many more, we’ve even had the great pleasure of working with an opera singer!). It is one of the most rewarding things about working in education, having the opportunity to support individuals realise their goals and develop their passion for practice, particularly when a priority for the course is to enable students to apply their knowledge to lead positive change for people affected by dementia. Over one hundred students have enrolled since the course opened its virtual doors, so you can imagine the sense of anticipation as we look forward to welcoming so many back.

What will await our amazing alumni in April? Well we don’t want to give too much away, but there is a strong suggestion that cake will be on offer… Our gathering will also provide the opportunity to take stock on the contemporary context of dementia. It will be a chance to reflect from the position of each of our attendees on the priorities and challenges that exist within our field. We will also be keen to find out more about how alumni have utilised their learning from the course, and the impact it has had. Then we might do a bit of future gazing, looking ahead together to see what educational opportunities could be put in place to meet the ongoing needs and priorities of our current, former and future students.  

It is a fabulous feeling that the Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies is approaching its fifth birthday. The chance to meet so many of those who have shone throughout that time is something we are all looking forward to. People matter most in the context of dementia and we would struggle to think of a more wonderful group of people with whom to gather, celebrate and look ahead!

Thanks Chris, it sounds like it should be a great event! If your interest in the Postgraduate Certificate has been piqued by this, Chris is hosting an online open evening 3.30-6.00pm on 29^th April, which is a great opportunity for prospective students to ask questions and find out a bit more about the course. To book a slot at the open evening, please contact Chris via dementia@worc.ac.uk

Connect with ADS on twitter @DementiaStudies and on Facebook @adsuow 

We’re also on Instagram, Threads and LinkedIn so have a look and find us there too. 

Welcome to our students

It’s an exciting time of year as we welcome a new cohort of students onto our fully online Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies. It’s currently induction week where we get to meet the students ahead of teaching officially starting next week, and we’ve got three modules just getting under way:

• Expert Practice in Delivering Person-Centred Dementia Care
• Engagement and Empowerment in Dementia Studies
• Dementia in the Family Context

It’s a mix of students who are just joining us for the first time and those who have already completed other module(s) with us, and there are people from different backgrounds, so it’s a great opportunity for everyone to share their experiences and learn from each other.

It won’t be long until we start recruiting for our September modules, but don’t worry, we’ll give you a bit of a break before that (although it’s never too early to start thinking about it…).

We’ve also got another course just getting started, the ‘Championing physical activity for people affected by dementia’ course. This is a short online course combining live teaching sessions, self-directed learning activities and the opportunity to put learning into practice and reflect on it with the rest of the group. It’s a course we’ve run a few times before with great student feedback, and we’re thrilled that we are able to run it again for a new cohort. We’re also aiming to publish a journal article about the course and how it was developed, but that’s still in progress – watch this space for further developments!

On top of this, we’re also about to start two bespoke online courses for different care providers in February, and are just putting the final touches to those. We’re really hitting the ground running in 2024!

So welcome to our new (and returning) students on all of our courses starting in the next few weeks. We’re looking forward to meeting you and hope you enjoy studying with us.

Connect with ADS on twitter @DementiaStudies and on Facebook @adsuow 

We’re also on Instagram, Threads and LinkedIn so have a look and find us there too.

Learning Disabilities and Dementia

We’ve got something a bit different for you this week as we’re pleased to say that one of our Postgraduate Certificate students has kindly agreed to share their story with us. Over to you, Saff…

Hi there!

My name is Saff, I’m a Registered Learning Disability Nurse of 14 years, currently working as a Community Learning Disability Nurse for Herefordshire & Worcestershire Health & Care NHS Trust. My job is often referred to among peers as ‘jack of all trades, master of none’! We do get involved with all sorts but sometimes honing our skills in one area of health care can take a back seat when patients on our caseloads always remain the priority and their needs are forever changing.

Learning more about Meeting Centres – training update

As we’re only a couple of weeks away from starting the next cohort on our Meeting Centre training course, we thought we’d take the opportunity to provide a quick update of what’s going on and make you aware of some future developments.

So far more than 200 people have been on our Meeting Centre training, with over 160 of those being since the course moved online in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ve found that the online format works well and enables people from across the UK to come together and share their ideas and experiences.

The Postgraduate Certificate 23-24 and beyond

September was a busy month for our Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies, and it’s not stopping there.

Firstly, we had graduation for 13 of our Postgraduate Certificate students, with many being able to attend the ceremony at Worcester Cathedral in person.

“It was an absolute privilege to read the names of our amazing graduands – they have worked so hard an deserve this success.” – Dr Shirley Evans, Director of ADS

“It was great to see so many of our wonderful graduating students at the ceremony and afterwards for a drop of something fizzy and a chat. We are all so proud of all our graduates!” – Dr Chris Russell, Course Lead

“It was so lovely to see students in 3-dimensions! There were lots of hugs, chatter and celebration and a few glassy eyed moments. It was an emotional day and really special to be able to be there in person to mark the occasion.” – Nicola Jacobson-Wright, Module Lead

Ever increasing numbers

When it comes to some of our videos and resources we don’t like to get too caught up on numbers as they don’t actually reflect what happens after someone has watched a video or downloaded a resource, but every now and then it’s nice to appreciate that the numbers mean our efforts aren’t going to waste. Here are a few things to tell you about:

• Our main video about our fully online Postgraduate Certificate has been viewed 120 times.
• We’ve got two Meeting Centre videos, one aimed at potential members and carers which has been viewed over 340 times, and one aimed at referrers which has been viewed over 170 times.
• Although only launched in mid-July, our suite of videos sharing the Get Real findings have been viewed nearly 180 times overall, and hopefully we’ll soon be getting those numbers for each individual video…
• The CHARM Framework Manual has been downloaded nearly 1,150 times!
• The two creative arts and sensory activity booklets produced by the TAnDem PhD students have been downloaded over 920 times, and that’s not counting downloads from our main website (which unfortunately we don’t know!).
• At the height of the Covid pandemic we created a series of resources focusing on different settings or situations. They’ve been downloaded nearly 3,950 times overall which is amazing, and we hope that they were useful during challenging times.

Summer break? Maybe not!

The period June to September is always a bit of an odd time for us. The University feels quiet as there are no students around, but actually for us it’s still quite busy. Unfortunately, it’s also a time when half of the team realise that we haven’t taken enough annual leave and need to use it before the end of August! It means that when we are around it can be even busier! So what have we got going on over the summer months?

Although our January cohort of students has finished, we’re still quite active in terms of our Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies. We’re recruiting for our September modules and there’s an opportunity to talk to the Programme Lead and find out more as part of a virtual open event on 6th July. See our website to book a place. Our module content is also being reviewed, checked, tweaked and updated ahead of the next semester to make sure we’re ready to hit the ground running. We’re also supporting our Postgraduate Award students who are halfway through their double module, even though there is no formal teaching taking place.

New PGCert video

Although our current Postgraduate students have only just finished their modules (don’t forget to have a look at the Hennell Award if you’re one of them!), we’re already looking ahead to our new intake of students in September – and of course welcoming back the Postgraduate Award students for the second half of their module.

If you’ve studied one of our postgraduate modules on its own and are thinking about moving on to the full Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies, please see the videos in Week 7 and Week 12 of your module to find out what you need to do. Don’t leave it too late!

For those of you who might be considering studying with us but want a bit more information, we’ve created a new video to help you out. Well, one full video with two shorter versions focusing on specific aspects!