Learning environments to acquire new skills for improving communication
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
Leo Buscaglia, writer
We constantly strive to improve the experience of any person living with dementia, by providing relationship-centred communication consulting and communication development workshops for caregivers.
These encourage participants to get alongside and understand the person as they once were, looking at the world through their lens, putting them first.
This is both our mission and passion, because we believe that good communication always sits at the heart of providing every person with empathic, thoughtful care.
We developed the REAL Communication Framework in 2009. It provides the bedrock of our outlook and is the foundation for all our activities, which help contribute to transforming the care of older people living with dementia and their caregivers.
Incorporating the REAL Framework, our workshops are focused on developing relationship-centred communication. Supplementing caregivers’ existing knowledge, the workshops encourge them to reflect on their care relationships. The insights they gain, help build their confidence, add meaning to their work and provide greater understanding of the complexities of their care relationships.
The workshops were developed to provide caregivers with deeper knowledge, useful communication strategies and simple, innovative techniques to help them communicate with the people they care for – and each other, more meaningfully and enjoyably.
Care Home Manager
“I wanted my staff to realise how important meaningful conversation and listening is, especially for person-centred and relationship-centred care. The workshops have provided a really helpful springboard to improving their standards and we are already seeing the results.”
“Innovation typically comes from looking at the world through a slightly different lens.”
Jack Welch – Business leader
We constantly strive to improve the experience of any older person living with dementia – and therefore their carers and families, by collaborating with our client partners to develop original, relationship-centred communication projects that are:
We all like to connect and share, but sometimes it can be more challenging across the generations, especially if the older person is living with dementia. When we hear more about the person’s life, how they looked at the world as a younger person and what they enjoyed doing, it helps us to understand them better now. When we know the person better, we can care for them better.
Following research into how memory works, especially in dementia, we asked over 160 people from 65 to 99 years old about happy memories from their youth. We explored the subjects they told us about to develop, design and publish two sets of conversation cards featuring everyday life in the 40s and 50s.
Each set contains 26 large-size picture cards with background information and conversational triggers, to prompt instant, real conversation, story sharing and fun for anyone remembering their past, helping us to reconnect with them.
Real communication game changers
Since 2008, we have been delighted to work with a range of wonderful partners and clients…