Dementia Specific Training - 16-hour curriculum that includes the following areas and topics: overview of the disease process, managing stress, communication skills, assisting with ADLs, safety, medications, environments, challenging behaviors, and recreational activities. This training is appropriate for all staff in any type of care setting for any person working with persons with dementia.

Person Centered Dementia Care - An advanced course based on the most up to date and influential psychosocial understandings of dementia. This training spans from 8 to 18 hours depending on the needs for your staff and facility. It is appropriate for all staff working with persons with dementia.

Activities Programming to Meet the Needs of Persons with Dementia - This training is an 8-hour program to explore methods to modify activities to meet the special needs of persons with dementia. As a result of this training, you will learn how to take activities and adapt them to multiple levels for the varied skills and abilities of participants with dementia. 

Leadership in Activities - Within everyone there is a leader, so learn how to develop leadership abilities that create a self-directed team. Get everyone on board in your unit to broaden the base of support and involvement within the activities program. This 4 to 8-hour program is appropriate for all members of your staff. 

Leadership and Teamwork - This training explores cutting edge techniques to emphasize leadership as a basis for team building. This is not a quick fix technique, but requires a commitment from administration and staff to evolve the organization to a higher level of quality care. Within this training, explore the ABCs of leadership techniques to develop a cohesive, self-directed team. Receive initial two-day training with follow-up, debriefing and practice sessions over a six month period via telephone, e-mail and visits as appropriate. The outcomes empirically demonstrated by using this method indicate a significant reduction in staff turnover, staff absenteeism, and staff injury, thereby saving of human resource dollars. 

Training the Program Assistant in Adult Day Services - 32 -hour curriculum that assures minimum skill sets in preparation for program assistant certification testing or to strengthen the contributions of program assistants within an adult day service center. Categories of topics covered include: understanding adult day services, target population, administration and organization, personal care, services, staffing, facility and environmental and safety considerations, serving individuals with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. Some states or facilities have chosen to bring us to facilitate the 32-hour program assistant training as a means of assessing the impact of the training and give their potential trainers experience. The state associations then ask us, as National Adult Day Services Association Master Trainers, to do a "train-the-trainer" for six to twenty-five of their members to propagate the curriculum and initiate the state certification for program assistants.

Program Assistant Refresher Course (in preparation for certification testing) -an 8-hour, intensive review course to assist program assistants in their preparation for certification testing. Major information is reviewed while personal care skills are practiced, i.e., assist with transfers, assist someone walking with a walker, etc.

Training the Program Assistant in Adult Day Services: Train-the-Trainer - As NADSA designated Master Trainers, we facilitate courses to train-the-trainer in this curriculum. Length of this course is dependent upon number of enrollees. Up to six people requires a two day process; a 3 day process for 7-15 people; a 4 day process for 15-25 potential trainers. The program assistant training curriculum as well as facilitation tips and logistics of setting up successful program assistant trainings are included. Successful candidates of this train-the-trainer are determined by a juried, peer review presentation process. All candidates are required to present an assigned segment of the curriculum before their peers. Peers are required to confer whether they would feel comfortable having this person train their employees or co-presenting the curriculum with them. With our guidance, in this way, your state's potential trainers set the standard for your own state.