Arts 4 Dementia

Early-Stage Dementia Awareness Training for Arts & Heritage Organisations. Arts 4 Dementia is a UK charity, working with arts venues to:

• Provide training and develop arts programmes.

• Empower and inspire people with early-stage dementia and carers through artistic stimulation.

• Help preserve fulfilling active life together, for longer at home.

 

Arts 4 Dementia, has been developing an award-winning educational learning stream at arts venues to re-energise and inspire people affected by early stage dementia, and their carers and produced. Current training includes 'Early-Stage Dementia Awareness Training for Arts & Heritage Organisations' supported by BSL Interpreters to assist people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Sessions will be delivered for Arts 4 Dementia (A4D) by Dementia Pathfinders trainer Olivia McLennan, with arts workshop guidance from Nigel Franklin, A4D Chief Executive. The next session takes place at Camden Council, St Pancras Square, 10.15am – 5.30pm on Thursday 19 March 2020.

Beatriceallegranti.com
Beatrice Allegranti is an award winning dance artist, dance movement psychotherapist, capoeira teacher, feminist researcher and educator. Her practice has been influenced by a variety of inspirational mentors in the fields of dance, film, capoeira, feminism and psychotherapy. 

Beatrice’s international experience spans two decades and encompasses choreography and filmmaking as well as teaching, clinical practice and supervision. Feminist politics inform her practice and her work and collaborations exists at the intersections of biomedical, scientific and philosophical understandings of dance and moving bodies in relationship. Beatrice is passionate about the potential for (kin)aesthetic and embodied practices as vehicle for not just showing – but of ‘knowing’ – giving us a way to understand the complexity of human experiences in a multilayered and creative way. Beatrice Allegranti’s new short film, I Can’t Find Myself, explores the experience of dementia. 
 

MyCareMatters

Zoe Harris cared for her husband for 5 years at home before he moved to a care home with advanced dementia for the final 13 months of his life. Putting to use what she learned from that experience, Zoe developed the range of Remember I’m-Me-Care Charts which are now in use in over 1,400 care homes, also in hospitals and people’s own homes. These have won numerous awards and resulted in Zoe being named as a Nesta/Observer Radical and HSJ Innovator in 2014. Zoe’s previous careers have all had communication at their centre, whether journalism, public relations or marketing and she has combined that knowledge with her personal experience of caring to develop further communication tools such as the My Future Care Handbook and Buddy Service. Zoe has seen first hand the difference it can make to have those important conversations about end of life and how it can bring peace of mind to family members when decisions have been made and shared..

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Cognitive Stimulation Therapy
Professor Aimee Spector, University College London, UK. Professor Spector developed CST as her PhD and has since been involved in several ongoing research trials. She has authored four CST training manuals, developed this course and has delivered it to over 2000 people worldwide. Aimee also has extensive clinical experience working with people with dementia and in facilitating CST groups. Professor Spector leads the CST training and is Director of the International CST Centre.

Dr Helen Donovan qualified in 1994 in Australia as a clinical psychologist, and has worked in older people’s mental health in both Australia and the UK for more than fifteen years. She has been the psychology lead for older people in Bedfordshire mental health services since 2003. She became involved with Cognitive Stimulation Therapy in 2006 after Aimee Spector joined the Trust, and has been involved in CST groups, supervision, training and research since that time. She was part of the SHIELD research team, with Bedfordshire as one of the sites in the randomised controlled trial of Maintenance Cognitive Stimulation Therapy. She has provided many CST training workshops and conference presentations in the UK and Australia.

Dr Gemma Ridel is a clinical psychologist currently working with people with dementia in Norfolk. She also lectures on the University of East Anglia Clinical Psychology Doctoral Programme. She has extensive experience of teaching, supervising and running CST groups. She was involved with the Individual Cognitive Stimulation Therapy trial, as Norfolk was one of the sites in the randomised controlled trial. She has provided many CST training workshops and conference presentations in the UK and Ireland.

Dr Joshua Stott is a clinical psychologist with 13 years post qualification experience working with people with dementia. He currently works as a principle clinical psychologist in a memory clinic in central London. He also works as a senior clinical tutor on the UCL Clinical Psychology doctorate and has extensive experience in training health professionals in Cognitive Stimulation Therapy and other psychosocial interventions for people with dementia. He has published number of papers on psychosocial issues and interventions in dementia and edited a book on systemic psychotherapy for older people.

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Danceeast.co.uk
DanceEast has been running a range of innovative community projects for over thirty years. They work with a range of partners on local, national and international projects and enjoy introducing people to dance for the first time as much as developing and refining skills in more experienced dancers.

DanceEast is launching a new programme of weekly classes for family carers and people living with Dementia, in partnership with New Adventures & Re:Bourne and Dementia Pathfinders. The sessions are designed for family carers and those in the early stages of Dementia to share the experience together.
 

Dontleavemenow.co.uk

Brian Daniels is an established playwright whose work has been seen nationally and internationally including off-Broadway, New York. His play 'Don't Leave Me Now' explores the impact of dementia on two very different family units. There have been more than 40 rehearsed readings of the play and Dementia Pathfinders have supported a series of these readings with post-performance discussions. Brian is working closely with Dementia Pathfinders now in looking at ways in which drama can positively engage those who find themselves on the dementia journey.

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Embracing Age

With a background in nursing older people, Tina English is the founder and director of Embracing Age, a charity that runs the Care Home Friends project, mobilising an army of trained volunteers to spend time and build friendships with care home residents.

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Individual Cognitive Stimulation Therapy
Dr Phuong Leung, the founder of the iCST Dementia Training and Consultancy, a dementia research fellow and a Fellow of Higher Education Academy.  She joined the Division of Psychiatry, University College London (UCL) since 2011 and has been working in three major research programmes in developing and evaluating cognitive and psychosocial interventions for people with dementia and their carers. 

She completed a PhD in psychiatry at UCL in 2017. Her PhD/research role was to design, develop, and evaluate the effects of iCST for people with dementia and their carers. She developed the iCST dementia training programme and has extensive clinical experience working with people with dementia, their carers, and healthcare professionals, particularly in facilitating iCST training nationally and internationally. She is the co-author of the "Making a difference 3" Individual Cognitive Stimulation Therapy, a manual for carers.

Prior to her academic career, she worked in the community for eleven years promoting health and wellbeing in vulnerable older people. She therefore will bring strong knowledge and understanding of health, mental health and social care to the training programme.

 

Isle of Wight Dementia Pathfinders CIO

Dementia Pathfinders are delighted to announce the creation of Isle of Wight Dementia Pathfinders CIO - a new charity with a primary purpose of supporting carers, relatives and friends of people living with dementia on the Isle of Wight. Initiatives already supported by IWPD are 'Dementia Conversations' and 'Dementia Playlists.
 

Mandyross.co.uk

Mandy has worked on Reading for Well-Being since 2009 in mental health settings with Polly Wright of the Hearth Centre, reading aloud from poetry and fiction, and creative writing in response. Mandy and Polly deliver Reading for Wellbeing /Bibliotherapy courses with Dementia Pathfinders.  Mandy is artistic co-director of Secret City Arts www.secretcityarts.com and enjoys cross-fertilising writing in projects with music, drama and other art forms. She has worked with Mac, CBSO, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham Libraries, Ledbury and Much Wenlock Poetry Festivals, Birmingham Museums Trust and she has taught at Birmingham and Newman Universities and BCU.

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Many Happy Returns
Sarah Reed became a dementia communication specialist in response to her mother’s decade-long experience of Alzheimer’s disease. As a result, she created 1940s and 1950s Many Happy Returns Chatterbox cards to encourage meaningful enjoyable engagement between carers and people with dementia through reminiscence and life story. 1960s cards are in production. Her interactive, evidence-based blended learning REAL Communication workshops for carers received the Gold Award at the 2014 Performance Learning Awards.
She is an AgeUK Expert-by-Experience and a member of CQC Adult Social Care co-production group. She works with the MY Home Life team and NCVO Volunteering in Care Homes Advisory board. In 2009, she received a Bank of America Local Hero Award for her long volunteer involvement with the national charity, Contact the Elderly.

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Medina Publishing
Our Dementia Diary tells the love story of Rachael Dixey and her partner Irene as Irene battled with early-on-set Alzheimer’s.

Irene was in her early fifties when she was diagnosed with early-on-set Alzheimer’s and passed away at the age of 66. Rachael talks about the difficulties of accepting the unexpected diagnosis and the brusque way in which the information was delivered. For Rachael, the doctor’s brisk manner gave her a focus in a sea of uncertainty and confusion as she dealt with the loss of the partner she loved and the future she had imagined.

This beautiful story reveals the face behind the bathroom door that we all paint over before stepping outside. Rachael’s exploration of loss and grief is both heart-warming and tear-provoking. Filled with moments of hilarity, anger and a lot of confusion, Our Dementia Diary is a must read for anyone struggling to cope with the reality of the disease.
Rachael’s story has not only been recorded on paper but also adapted for the stage by the playwright Brian Daniels in his play, Don't Leave me Now.

Read Rachael and Irene's Story here
Use the code DP3 to ensure that £3 from every copy is donated to Dementia Pathfinders.
For more information contact Krissi Hill at krissi@medinapublishing.com
 

Motivationandco.com
Inspired by Elaine Everett in Yorkshire in the late 1990s, Motivation & Co delivers to over 30,000 people every month in the UK. Specialising in physical and cognitive stimulation, the programmes are evidence based and have been designed and fully researched to provide challenging, stimulating and motivating levels to suit all abilities.

Our sessions provide the full package with:

• Stimulation of long and short term memory, improving memory recall

• Improvement with joint flexibility and muscle strength

• Working with eye and hand co-ordination and orientation skills

• Interaction and engagement with a group

• Fun, laughter and entertainment

• Contact with a professional and independent team.

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For more information please contact Jane Royden at motivationwestmidlands@gmail.com

 

Music for Life
Music for Life aims to enhance the quality of life of its participants and to demonstrate to carers the emotional, social and physical potential of people in their care. Projects take place in residential homes and special day care centres, and focus on people who can be isolated and disempowered as a result of the advanced stage of their dementia.

Music for Life works with care staff to enhance their understanding of the emotional needs of people with dementia in the context of a person-centred approach to dementia care. Participants' personalities emerge more strongly through the work, and carers, who are also part of the team, can then re-evaluate their care of individuals in the light of their experience during the project.

This video introduces the significant impact of this programme:

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