University accreditation for dementia programme

Amore Care has received university accreditation for a new successful ‘Creative Minds’ programme. The project was well received by the review board at the University of Brighton which was unanimous in giving full accreditation. The success of the programme follows a year of writing, delivering to care teams, reviewing, changing and retesting.

‘Creative Minds’ is a five session programme that has the ethos of supporting people with dementia to live their lives to the fullest capacity. The sessions include: understanding the impact of dementia on the person and family, enabling communication and positive experiences for people living with dementia; and understanding stress reactions in dementia.

Creative Minds is available for all Amore care home staff and offers participants a variety of ways to learn including active participation, best practice films, exercises, presentations, theory and reflective learning.

Stephen Amos, Dementia Lead at Amore Care, said: “Creative minds gives a clear message that people with dementia can contribute, be purposeful, can engage and be active, can share emotions and develop relationships, depending on the individual.

“Our absolute belief is that people living with dementia need to be valued as a person with a continued role and purpose in life, need a sense of belonging within their care home community, need to feel they are loved and need to have meaningful engagement, activity and occupation. The key challenge for our staff is that residents are often reliant on them to facilitate this.”