Learn to Teach the DAWN Method
Become a DAWN Trainer
Are you a certified DAWN Dementia Care Specialist? Are you interested in doing more to spread the good news about the skills and strengths of dementia and how to provide truly supportive dementia care? If you are interested in becoming a teacher of the DAWN Method and assisting families who are providing dementia care at home, there is now a way.
DAWN Trainer Certification Program
The DAWN Trainer certification program is designed to train those who have been previously certified in the DAWN Method as DAWN Dementia Care Specialists and who work directly with people who are experiencing dementia. Being a medical professional or having a graduate degree is not required. You simply need experience with more than one person who is experiencing dementia and the desire to help families and caregivers learn how to provide kinder, more supportive dementia care at home.
DAWN Dementia Care Trainers
Jill Couch, MS, OT/L, DDCS
DAWN Trainer
Certified Dementia Practitioner
Certified Beyond Driving with Dignity
Better People Care LLC
Pro31 Safe Senior Driver LLC
My Grandmother grew up in a sod house on a homestead in Western Nebraska. Years later, she and my Grandfather would purchase part of this homestead and farm and ranch there for decades. This ranch, and my grandparents, were profound parts of my growing up.
I watched my Grandmother fade from this life with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, and this spurred me to develop my Occupational Therapy career to become trained as a DAWN Dementia Care Specialist and certified DAWN Trainer. After watching my grandmother’s painful demise, I am so grateful to finally know how to get it right with dementia, to bring hope and help to families walking the dementia journey. This work with older folks, especially since becoming trained in the DAWN Method, has been the most meaningful season of my varied Occupational Therapy career.
I am honored to bring my professional background, as well as my history with the United States Army ROTC and service in the Army Reserve, and various other leadership and volunteer experiences, to the work I do with families.
I was asked recently how I work with dementia every day. My response was, “It is because I know the DAWN Method, and how to use the tools of the DAWN Method well, that I find such meaning and hope in what I do.” I understand and put into practice every day how we can provide care for folks with dementia in a way that brings them security, and joy, and beauty, and gives their families hope that dementia doesn’t mean that life is over.
Every day I see the tools of the DAWN Method bring to folks with dementia the security and well-being they deserve. When I have the privilege to teach the DAWN Method to families, I watch them find hope and become able to truly make daily life better for their loved ones with dementia, and themselves.
It is my honor to be a DAWN Method Trainer and Consultant, and help families and caregivers make this world a more dementia-aware, dementia-friendly place.
Jill Couch