Workshops and Counseling for Families

WORKSHOP 1: Help!
I'm Going Crazy!

A sanity-inducing guide for family caregivers. Alzheimer's is a journey to a different land and, for every journey to a foreign place, you need a guide.  This guide  shows you how to equip yourself for the journey and learn the special language and customs of Alzheimer's. Instead of treating it only as an illness without solutions, in this workshop we learn how to walk as a companion to someone on this difficult journey. Using humor and story, Frena will bring a whole new set of skills to your journey. She acquired them in her 20-year journey with people with dementia and many other caregivers have experienced transformation in their own lives by using them.

WORKSHOP 2: The Inner
Journey of Alzheimer's

You've probably never heard how people may grow and change in positive ways through their journey with Alzheimer's. You may well not be aware that you too, as a caregiver, can grow and develop in wonderful ways. The key for the caregiver is to ask: "How am I being asked to grow?" Under the expert guidance of 20-year-caregiver Frena Gray-Davidson, caregivers will learn to look at the whole issue of caregiving in a different way. At the same time,  you will also learn to understand the person you care for in a different way too. For both the caregiver and the person cared for, this is a profoundly spiritual journey, as well as a journey of illness. Using humor to lighten the weariness of the task, Frena will enable you to re-experience the way in which you think about Alzheimer's.

WORKSHOP 3: Caregiving as
a Spiritual Journey

Do you think about the meaning of your journey as a caregiver, or are you just too darned tired? Finding the spiritual significance of caregiving is the key to emotionally surviving the task. Bringing honesty and open-heartedness to your journey is essential. This workshop helps participants to explore the deep issues of illness and caregiving. It will use spiritual wisdom from many traditions to enable you to see your daily burden of care in a different way. Everyone will learn new coping skills, bring a fresh understanding to practical ways to create personal care plans and much laughter will probably occur.

WORKSHOP 4: Understanding Alzheimer's and Solving Problem Behaviors

No behavior is meaningless in Alzheimer's nor is any behavior only due to the disease. Once you understand this, you can begin to unravel the meaning of any behavior. Once you can do that, you begin to find solutions to each and every behavior problem. But, careful!  Maybe it's you who will have to change the way you do things. Frena has been teaching caregivers and care professionals for 20 years to relate to people with dementia in ways which enable those problem behaviors to be solved. A problem-solving clinic will be part of this workshop and Frena will teach her Three-Point Plan to Solve All Behavior Problems.

About Frena's Workshops

These workshops come out of the Frena's 20 years of working with people with dementia and their caregivers. She brings a unique viewpoint and set of skills to the task of care-giving. With her rare ability to understand the inner heart of caregivers as well as those they care for, you will find her practical, grounded, humorous and compassionate approach wonderfully original and useful. She is the author of the several of the best books on Alzheimer's caregiving and is a straightforward and unpretentious communicator, speaking from a multicultural background and many forms of Alzheimer's care. Every workshop will include opportunities for a problem-solving clinic based directly on the needs of the participant caregivers.

WORKSHOP 5: Making Friends
with Your Own Death

No need to have a fatal illness when you attend this workshop. After all, if you are human, you are destined inevitably to die. Do you think about it? Do you talk about it with friends? What kind of death would you like to have? How would you like your obituary to read? This workshop introduces you to your prospective death. Remembering that those who fear to die, also fear to live, this workshop will wake you up to revitalizing your life and the way you live it. Using other cultures, other spiritual viewpoints, as well as process work and creativity, participants will have a great time playing in the shadow of death.  Be prepared to be deeply honest.

WORKSHOP 6: Alzheimer's 101:
Starting Out as a Caregiver

This workshop is for those who are beginning the journey of caregiving a person with dementia. Or maybe you just suspect that someone in your life has Alzheimer's. Either way, this workshop will give you a very practical hands-on game plan so you can be prepared for whatever comes along. And, yes, it includes making your own care-plan for you – since no one wants to be looked after by an over-tired over-stressed person. Plenty of opportunities to ask all the questions you have and didn't know who to ask.