Frena Gray-Davidson will inspire your staff, equip them with new skills and leave them with a set of working tools for the future. Careworkers transform by taking a new view and a new approach to people with Alzheimer's. Frena has the charisma to get their attention, the knowledge to change their methods and the spiritual capacity to truly inspire them for years to come. Your staff recognize that Frena's been there, she's done it and they can do it too.

WORKSHOP 1: What's REALLY
Going on in Alzheimer's?

When we care for people with Alzheimer's, we CANNOT meet their needs if we dismiss their symptoms. If we ask ourselves WHAT those symptoms really mean, then we can create nurturing care for our residents. When we create a nurturing care environment, behavior problems are reduced and staff turnover is reduced. Everyone wins.

In this workshop, participants will learn:

• WHAT behaviors really mean;
• HOW to meet the needs expressed by those behaviors;
• WHY we must do that.

Using this knowledge, participants will be able to revise their understanding of resident behaviors; they will be able to reduce the stress levels of residents; they will make better relationships with residents and they will transform their own work environment.

Problem-solving Clinic:

This workshop will also include a problem-solving clinic for your staff, relevant to your own residents. This will enable your staff to create more effective care plans.

WORKSHOP 2: Dealing with
Difficult Behaviors

The so-called difficult behaviors of Alzheimer's are legendary—anger, wandering, combativeness. Yet, if we could speak the language that those behaviors express, we could create a combat-free day in the Alzheimer's Care Unit. Regard this as a language lesson.

We will take each of the most common so-called difficult behaviors and concentrate on solving them. We will also explore whether poor interactions from care staff are part of the problem and how we could avoid any such factors in our future work. The behaviors will include:

• wandering
• combativeness
• repetitive behaviors
• sun-downing
• showering and toileting problems
• wanting parents, home or to leave
• hoarding
• so-called delusions & hallucinations

Skills taught will include:

• effective listening
• appropriate responses
• use of guidance modes, including distraction, redirection and emotional fulfilment as a way of solving problems.

Problem-solving Clinic

This workshop will also include a problem-solving clinic for your staff, relevant to your own residents. This will enable your staff to create more effective interventions.

WORKSHOP 3: Improving Dementia Communication Skills

This workshop will concentrate on training staff to interact and communicate more effectively with residents with dementia. In doing this, they will be much more alert to any ways in which their own handling skills can affect the comfort levels of residents with dementia.

It will include the following:

• body language
• interacting at the right speed
• correct postures for interactions comforting to residents
• cueing
• voice levels
• idea complexity
• use of rational argument
• listening with heart
• using intuition

Staff will role-play a variety of interventions and demonstrate the use of each. A problem-solving clinic relevant to special needs of actual residents will be an important part of this workshop.

WORKSHOP 4: Managing Stress
and Nurturing The Spirit

Care workers are among the most stressed workers in the entire American workforce. This is why their rates of back injury are the highest, bar none, of any profession. It is also why alcohol and drug use tend to be higher than in many sectors of the working population. Many care workers are lost to the profession after an individual experiences the death of a resident dear to him or her self. Staff turnover is legendary in the care industry. We CAN change that.

In this workshop, ee will explore the major stressors in care workers' lives, including the following:

• family history
• grief
• the death of residents
• inability to self-monitor stress
• lack of spiritual nurturing.

We will look at how we can create solutions and nurturing behaviors that support us as caregivers of others. These can include:

• becoming aware of negative family patterns transferring into care work
• allowing ourselves time to grieve
• making rituals of farewell, for solitary or group use
• being willing to check in with each other
• peer support groups
• recognizing signs of stress and making a self-care plan
• seeking soul support.

In this workshop, we will model how nurturing support for each other and ourselves could look and feel.

Please contact Frena to
discuss or schedule one or
more of these workshops, or a custom-created workshop, for your group or staff.

Dementia: Nurturing the Spirit

Suitable for CNAs, Rns, LPNs, Social Workers and anyone else involved with the daily care of residents with Alzheimer's. These core workshops have a common thread: Successful Social Behavior Management.

A training workshop in Social Behavior Management enables your staff to ensure that your residents with Alzheimer's and similar dementias will be offered effective and supportive care, free of the necessity for chemical restraints. As well as being the best and kindest way to care for such residents, it also ensures full conformity with state and federal regulations. And families will appreciate it too!

"Behavioral problems are communications about unmet needs," she says. "By learning successful interventions, communication skills and developing meaningful interactions with such residents, we can create care which nurtures their spirits and meets their needs. This leads to a huge reduction in such behaviors."

Your staff will learn:

• to decode the real meaning of problem behaviors;
• to intervene successfully with residents who show such behaviors;
• to avoid confrontations while achieving peaceful resolutions;
• to communicate successfully with residents;
• to apply her unique Three Point Plan to all behavioral problems and therefore to construct care plans that really work.

Follow-up training for CEUs is possible through on-line training and through use of Training Units, presented on DVD and with texts for testing included.

All professional training workshops are 2 1/2 hours long. A day's training is at least 5 hours long.

Frena will be happy to arrange presentations suitable for family members, professional care staff or a combination of both and to cover a range of subjects especially appropriate for your target audience.

Remember, by offering a free or low-cost workshop for the general public, you are outreaching to those who will be your future resident families.