Dementia course develops relationships, mentors
Helping Hand Aged Care has partnered with Dementia Australia to upskill staff in dementia care through an immersive training program that aims to help build relationships.
A group of staff from across Helping Hand Aged Care’s services are taking part in a dementia training program that teaches them how to foster engagement with residents and share their learnings with colleagues.
The Meaningful Engagement Mentoring program is an immersive course delivered by Dementia Australia’s Centre for Dementia Learning, where participants work with a colleague to develop their own meaningful engagement program with one resident they often care for.
The four-month course aims to build relationships, improve staff understanding and foster engagement with residents and assist participants to become mentors to other staff after completion.
At the South Australian provider, 12 metropolitan and 4 regional staff members including nurses, personal care workers and lifestyle, hotel services and maintenance staff have completed the four-month training.
They will spend the next six months mentoring three colleagues each to develop engagement programs with purposeful activities for residents they often provide care to.
Helping Hand Aged Care CEO Chris Stewart said the program aimed to help staff better understand the needs of residents with dementia.
“It’s about understanding a particular individual’s history, understanding their family relationships and the things they like to do. Understanding that individual’s history can lead to better care,” Mr Stewart told Australian Ageing Agenda.
It is also about understanding the resident’s environment, he said.
“Some residents with dementia don’t like to go into group activities so taking special time to understand the individual has led to a more personalised care structure for that individual,” he said.
The program is available to all aged care staff across the spectrum of care, Mr Stewart said.
“The beauty of it is it’s not limited to nurses or care workers or any particular profession. We’ve had people from lifestyle, hotel services, nurses and care workers, both in residential and in home care participate in the program,” he said.
Mr Stewart said this training is so important because 250 people are diagnosed with dementia every day in Australia.
“Whilst all of our staff are provided basic dementia training as part of their induction program at Helping Hand, we thought this was another way to tap into people’s passion and genuine interest,” he said.
The program delivery is being supported by the Helping Hand Dementia Scholarship fund, which was established in 2020 following the death of resident Anne Gibson who died “unexpectedly and in tragic circumstances,” Mr Stewart said.
Mr Stewart said he hoped to offer the program to more staff in the coming years.
“From this training we hope to see our staff be more confident and knowledgeable, engage in innovative different ways and then ultimately improve quality of life for all residents across our dementia care units in all of our homes and then in the community,” he said.
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