Aged Care Insite Issue 111 | Feb-March 2019 | Seite 36

workforce
Marie Alford (far left) and Nerida Pankhurst (centre). Photo: HammondCare
On the right course
New intensive program designed
to create dementia experts.
Marie Alford and Nerida Pankhurst
interviewed by Conor Burke
A
new program developed by
Dementia Support Australia (DSA)
and HammondCare is aiming
to create dementia experts among the
provider’s workforce.
As it stands, dementia is the second
leading cause of death in Australia,
contributing to 5.4 per cent of male deaths
and 10.6 per cent of female deaths. There
are an estimated 436,366 Australians living
with dementia, and without a medical
breakthrough, the number of people with
dementia is expected to increase to 589,807
by 2028 and 1,076,129 by 2058. The disease
currently costs Australia more than $15
billion every year.
It is with this in mind that DSA and
HammondCare have developed the
Intensive Industry Partner Consultant
Program, designed to support aged care
providers and those in their care through
education and upskilling.
Four health professionals have completed
the course so far, graduating at the end
of January. One of the participants,
Jeanne Daly from Brisbane, said: “The
diversity of the staff working with DSA and
HammondCare contributed greatly to our
learnings from capacity building, physio,
lifestyle, occupational therapy, mental
health, dietitians, registered nurses and
many more.”
Professor Colm Cunningham, director of
HammondCare’s Dementia Centre, said the
program was pioneering the future of the
aged and dementia care sector.
“I’m confident it will do a great deal to
improve the care that residents and clients
receive,” Cunningham said.
Aged Care Insite spoke with Marie Alford,
head of business development at the
34 agedcareinsite.com.au
dementia centre at HammondCare, as well
as program participant Nerida Pankhurst to
hear more about the course.
ACI: Marie, tell us about the Intensive
Industry Partner Consultant Program.
MA: The program was developed in
recognition of a gap in the market. One
of the core principles for DSA is building
capacity back into the industry. We can
provide a service through DSA, but it’s
important that we build capacity so that
services can start to understand the
importance of addressing the needs of
people with dementia who experience
behaviours that impact on their care.
So we developed an accreditation
program which we called the Dementia
Capability Compass. It’s a professional
review process, and it involves the
assessment of a range of services and
work outcomes, alongside a framework of
specific recognised and agreed standards
within the industry, so it’s really about
demonstrating practice, and taking some of
the theoretical things that people learn, as
well as what they learn in their day-to-day
work, and putting it into action.
How did the idea come about?
We’ve been working in the DSA program
since 2016, and that brings together the
Dementia Behaviour Management Advisory
Service and the Severe Behaviour Response
Team, and in those roles our consultants
provide on-the-ground support to aged care
providers, as well as family carers, to support
addressing the impact of behaviours.
But what we noticed was sometimes while
we’d work intensively with an aged care
provider with one client, the interventions,
recommendations and the things we were
supporting them with weren’t transferable to
the next person in the care home.
So we wanted to help them build their
capacity and understanding that, while we
need to look at each person as an individual,
there are things that we do within our work
that can be used to strengthen and support
the care that they provide to a whole range
of people in their care. And we really saw
that this accreditation framework would
strengthen and build that capacity across
the sector.
Take us through the course.
There are six standards in the accreditation
framework across two areas of capability.
One is about the core capability, and that’s
about understanding yourself, as a worker,
within the aged care system. One is the
value of working with others, and the other
is understanding the person with dementia,
and that’s really a key aspect of everything
we do, and in the work that we see. That’s
the thing that underpins everything.
And then you have the functional
capabilities, and that’s about managing
your workload within the aged care system,
understanding the impact of practice
knowledge, and effective leadership. All
of these come together to support and
provide a structure for people to develop
their skills as dementia consultants within
the workplace.
What does the day-to-day learning look
like? Is it in a class setting?
It’s definitely not classroom-based. We’re
aware that there are excellent education and
training opportunities out there, but this is
quite different. It’s about understanding the
competencies required from a practitioner
on the ground to undertake the role of the
consultant. That means working alongside
DSA consultants who’ve also undergone
the accreditation that we and our industry
partners are working with, so it’s really
important that our consultants who operate
in the program have the same experience
and undergo the same assessment that we
put our industry partners through.
So industry partners worked alongside
our DSA consultants. They attended visits to