Family Carer Training 2025 – 8 weeks* from Tuesday 30th September – 8 pm online via Zoom
*Please note, we are unable to run a session on Tuesday 18th November, so instead, the eighth and final session will be Tuesday 25th November*
Family Carers
If you are supporting a friend or relative, in your home, their home or in a care home, this is for you.
We hold 8 interactive sessions at weekly intervals for about 6 trainees at a time. Most of these are online via Zoom, but we also run a course within Wokingham Borough each term. We have now expanded our training into the Reading area.
The family carers’ course is free to attend, but we ask you to read our booklet ‘Understanding Dementia and Lessening its Impact’, available via our website @£5, including UK postage. Each session includes a short presentation using anonymised real-life examples, with time for questions and discussion. You’ll discover how the dementia affects the person you support, and why it can make the caring role so difficult. You’ll learn skills to help lessen the impact of dementia on you both. Each week we focus on a different aspect of our approach; trainees can try out techniques between sessions and discuss the outcome the following week. Carers gradually deepen their understanding of dementia, develop their skills and build mutually supportive relationships within the group.
Topics covered in each 75-minute interactive session:
1. Introduction to Understanding Dementia
– what’s different about this approach, and how it can lessen the impact of dementia
2. Well-being in dementia
– its importance, why it is so vulnerable in dementia, and how to support it
3. Questions
– why they can be unhelpful in dementia, and how to find better ways to support choice
4. Being a buddy
– how to get alongside the people you care for, and build better relationships
5. Contradiction and confrontation
– why they are best avoided, and how to do that without getting tangled up in lies
6. Listening and talking skills
– what to listen out for, what we can learn, and how to deal with repetitive questions
7. The hazards of ‘parenting’ our elders
– why role reversal can cause problems, and how to address ‘difficult’ behaviour
8. Where do we go from here?
– how to avoid a crisis and delay the need for 24-hour care by planning ahead
After completing the course, we will invite you to join our online community of family carers using this approach, for ongoing discussion and support.
If your preferred dates are fully booked, please see our other course dates or contact Lucy White at training@understandingdementia.co.uk to join our waiting list.
Courses run for 8 weeks (see note about dates above)
