Dementia Training for Agencies (In-Home Health)
Are you an in-home health agency struggling to find effective Alzheimer’s and dementia training materials for your staff? Do you have high turnover due to burnout? We can help.
Reduce risk and care partner stress
Working in the private homes of people experiencing dementia comes with unique concerns. Your employees need targeted training and specific techniques to succeed without increasing risk to themselves or your clients.
We provide you with individualized employee training and to DAWN strength-based dementia care techniques. Find out what a difference a strength-based approach to dementia and Alzheimer’s can make (see DAWN dementia research study results here) .
There is companionship in dementia. It lies in how we provide care.
Online training for care partners
We know it’s difficult to watch your staff struggle, and lose clients to long-term care. Spending time with someone experiencing dementia will be exhausting and frustrating unless the care partner understands what that person can and cannot do. Even the well-intentioned care partner will inadvertently embarrass and frustrate your clients unless they understand how dementia changes cognitive skills.
You want your caregivers to be successful. We do too. Well-equipped care partners are happy and successful.
Each employee completes the course independently. Purchase the number of seats you need.
Strength-based care for clients
Your clients will feel safer and be able to stay home longer with strength-based dementia care.
When clients have a sense of wellbeing, and feel that their care partners are on their side, there is less conflict and risk.
This is the beauty of DAWN, strength-based dementia care. Care partners who have had training in the DAWN Method say their clients are happier and more at peace. With DAWN training, you transform the care partner relationship into one of companionship and trust.
Because you want them to feel at home, at home.
“I work with a client who has many caregivers, but only two of us use the DAWN method. When we DAWN caregivers have a shift immediately following some of the others, we find her more confused and anxious, voicing her despair about how “stupid” she is. As a DAWN caregiver, I know my job is to protect her dignity and help her live her life at her own pace, in the comfort of any fond memories she is able to retain. When I use the DAWN tools that are habilitative and person-centered care, and can be so easily learned and applied, it restores her wellbeing.”
D.W., DDCS
Professional care partner in Pullman, WA
Because you care about your clients’ wellbeing.
“When I have the privilege of giving even glimpses of the DAWN method to a family, it’s as if they get to take a deep breath for the first time in a really long time.”
Jill Couch, OT, DDCS, DAWN Trainer
Owner of Better People Care in Fort Collins, CO
DAWN Partner program ~ Table of Contents
1—Struggling to slow care partner turnover?
When employees experience success and happiness at work, they stay longer. Yet working with people who are experiencing dementia is exhausting and difficult—unless you know how to recognize and work with the strengths and skills dementia does not take away.
“I do not see the problems caused by dementia as ‘dementia-related behaviors’, but instead as the emotional distress that people experience when they undergo progressive cognitive impairment.”
Judy Cornish
Creator of the DAWN Method
Ready to help your care partners be more successful?
“Being a caregiver is one of the most rewarding jobs there is. But without a compassionate and understanding method like the DAWN Method, it can be difficult to find the source of the behavior and turn it into something positive in a loving manner. I have a client who is very determined to feel in control. I use the tools of the DAWN Method every day with her. It took a few months, but she now feels completely in control in several areas, despite her dementia. Before I had been trained in the DAWN Method, I had nothing but common sense and compassion guiding me. Now I feel that with creativity and the DAWN tools I can help anyone who needs care.”
Erica R., DDCS
Professional caregiver in Auston, WA
2—How is DAWN dementia & Alzheimer’s training different?
The medical model of dementia care used widely today is largely based on the model of “fix the patient,” yet we know there is no “fix” for dementia. What if we rethink our model? What if we focused on what people experiencing dementia can do, instead of what they cannot? This is the basis of the DAWN Method—strength-based approach to dementia care. Because, can we really be person-centered if we don’t understand what a person can and cannot do?
Strength-based dementia training for care partners and administrative staff
Everyone functions better with consistency, and that is even more true when dementia comes into the picture. You’ll see a marked increase in companionship and decrease in behaviors when everyone at your in-home health agency is using the same approach. With the DAWN Partner dementia training program, you can train new hires individually or have employee complete the training in groups. Most employees are able to complete the program without assistance.
Meeting the emotional needs caused by dementia
Although dementia patients** become unable to recall, interpret or express ideas regarding their experiences, they are still having experiences. Their experiences will be causing them pain and relief, happiness and sadness, fear and anger—just like everyone else. Yet, because they are losing the skills we normally use to change and shape our moods, they become stuck in negativity—often fear or frustration—until a companion changes their mood for the positive.
If your care partners are conscious of this and learn how to shape the mood in dementia (read article about mood management), your clients will feel increasingly safe and comfortable with them. You’ll see your client/care partner relationships improve when your staff come to realize that they have the power to change the mood whenever they are with someone who is experiencing dementia. Mood management is the first tool that we teach in the DAWN Method.
* *NOTE: We do not like to refer to people as “dementia patients,” but that is the phrase that most people use when searching for dementia or Alzheimer’s training. We prefer to say “people experiencing dementia.”
3—What is included in the DAWN Partner dementia training program?
- “Preparing for Dementia” video series to help your clients’ families work with you. As a DAWN Partner you may share this video as a part of your family orientation materials. Sign up for our newsletter & get the Video Series.
- Online dementia training courses for all staff: 36 videos and quizzes that can be watched as many times as needed for competency.
- Care partners trained in strength-based, person-centered dementia care with certification and two years’ access to the materials.
- Use of the DAWN Partner logo on promotional materials.
- Option to purchase our DAWN HomeCare Online Dementia Class for Families in bulk in order to provide dementia care training to the families you serve.
- Option to purchase consultation and coaching with DAWN Trainers
Sample video from our dementia & Alzheimer’s training for care partners
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Ready to improve your care environment?
“I just completed the DAWN Method of caregiving course. I found the program has helped reduce stress levels substantially for both the client and myself. My client tends to get upset when he can’t find things. I found the method of chattering while looking really calms him down. I highly recommend this program to families dealing with dementia. Thank you Judy, I really enjoyed working with you.”
Lisa H., DDCS
Professional caregiver in Spokane, WA
4—More about the DAWN Method of dementia care
The DAWN Method of dementia care was developed by Judy Cornish after she spent five years working with people who were living in their own homes, often alone, with dementia. If you would like to get a feel for what the DAWN Method is like, we recommend that you start with “What is the DAWN Method of dementia care?” and then explore the list of articles below.
Topics from the dementia training materials
Below are some blog articles that introduce topics covered in the DAWN Partner training.
SKILLS KEPT AND LOST
- Losing rational thought: Why DAWN Focuses on the Loss of Rational Thought
- Keeping intuitive thought: Mindfulness and Dementia–Living in the Intuitive World
- Keeping the experiential self, losing the remembering self: The Experiential Self and the Remembering Self
- Losing mindfulness, keeping mindlessness: Mindlessness—the Benefits of Automatic Thinking for DementiaBlog articl1. Having empathy—What is it like to have dementia? Read Judy’s [Manifesto for *Dementia with Dignity*](https://the-dawn-method.local/manifesto-for-dementia-with-dignity/)
EMOTIONS CAUSED BY DEMENTIA
- How to Enhance Conversations in Dementia
- How Should I Respond When They Don’t Make Sense?
- Is it Dishonest to Go Along with Altered Realities?
- Turning No into Yes: Reaching Underlying Issues of Disempowerment
COMMUNICATING WITH SOMEONE WITH DEMENTIA
- Understanding the cause of dementia-related behaviors: Behaviors Aren’t the Problem, It’s the Emotions That Cause Them
- The dementia care partner’s Superpower—YOU control mood: Shaping the Mood in Dementia
- Our first article in a series on dementia and anger: Mean Dementia: Dementia and Being Mean to Family.
5—Next steps to becoming a DAWN Partner…
Providing dementia care is difficult and exhausting if you don’t understand the emotional needs that are causing what we refer to as dementia-related behaviors, or which skills people continue to use.
Care agencies and facilities can lower staff turnover and burnout by training their staff how to work with the skills dementia does not take away. Become a DAWN Partner and have this person-centered, strength-based dementia caregiver training program at your fingertips.
Contact us today to learn more about DAWN dementia and Alzheimer’s training and certification for caregivers and about becoming a DAWN Partner.
