Dementia Care Volunteer Training: From a small seed to a flourishing forest
Tracks
Ballroom 3
Adaptation
Dementia
Implementation
Meaningful engagement
Non-pharmacological interventions
| Thursday, November 14, 2024 |
| 9:30 AM - 9:45 AM |
Speaker
Ms Annaliese Blair
Clinical Research Officer
Australian National University
Dementia Care Volunteer Training: From a small seed to a flourishing forest
Abstract
The initial seed
Witnessing the adverse effects of hospitalisation on older people with dementia and delirium, a rural Clinical Nurse Consultant resolved to make a change. In 2009, Cath Bateman and colleagues developed and piloted a volunteer training program to ensure cognitively impaired older patients had companionship, meaningful activity, and assistance with eating, drinking, and walking where appropriate.
The sapling
In 2014 the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation funded the development of a hospital implementation and training resource. This resource was used to roll out and evaluate the program in another 7 NSW rural hospitals and subsequently supported implementation in hospitals nationally and internationally.
Transplanting
In 2020 the hospital resource was transplanted for residential aged care and trialled as a face-to-face training program. Quantitative outcomes were a reported increase in resident quality of life, and strong program satisfaction by staff and families. Qualitative outcomes included increased companionship, and calming effect, and reduced loneliness, and staff care burden.
A flourishing forest
In 2023 a partnership was formed with Dementia Training Australia (DTA) to convert the face-to-face content into an interactive, online training course. In the first 3 months of the course going live, there has been 477 enrolments and 261 completed nationally, dramatically increasing the reach of the training. It is accessible through DTA and the Department of Health and Ageing, Volunteering in Aged Care website. Plans are now underway to evaluate the online training course. This journey shows how prolonged persistence, partnerships and harnessing online technologies can increase research impact.
Witnessing the adverse effects of hospitalisation on older people with dementia and delirium, a rural Clinical Nurse Consultant resolved to make a change. In 2009, Cath Bateman and colleagues developed and piloted a volunteer training program to ensure cognitively impaired older patients had companionship, meaningful activity, and assistance with eating, drinking, and walking where appropriate.
The sapling
In 2014 the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation funded the development of a hospital implementation and training resource. This resource was used to roll out and evaluate the program in another 7 NSW rural hospitals and subsequently supported implementation in hospitals nationally and internationally.
Transplanting
In 2020 the hospital resource was transplanted for residential aged care and trialled as a face-to-face training program. Quantitative outcomes were a reported increase in resident quality of life, and strong program satisfaction by staff and families. Qualitative outcomes included increased companionship, and calming effect, and reduced loneliness, and staff care burden.
A flourishing forest
In 2023 a partnership was formed with Dementia Training Australia (DTA) to convert the face-to-face content into an interactive, online training course. In the first 3 months of the course going live, there has been 477 enrolments and 261 completed nationally, dramatically increasing the reach of the training. It is accessible through DTA and the Department of Health and Ageing, Volunteering in Aged Care website. Plans are now underway to evaluate the online training course. This journey shows how prolonged persistence, partnerships and harnessing online technologies can increase research impact.
Biography
Annaliese Blair is a Clinical Psychologist with the Australian National University and the Southern NSW Local Health District Aged Care Evaluation Unit, Australia. She has worked as a Clinical Research Officer for over two decades, overseeing research projects aimed at alleviating problems associated with ageing, including the impact of dementia, as well as problems experienced by carers. Annaliese has extensive experience working in inpatient units, residential care setting and community mental health teams providing psychosocial interventions for older people with mental health problems and/or dementia, their carers and nursing staff and as a Senior Policy Officer with the NSW Older People’s Mental Health Policy Unit. Annaliese is currently a PhD candidate at the Australian National University where she is working on a Medical Research Future Fund grant on the Know Me project involving digital stories for aged care residents with dementia.
Session Chair
Amber Mills
Policy And Research Manager
AAG
