Connect and Create Digital Course

Professional Development for Creative Engagement

A new pilot program is suitable for all professional care partners and senior living staff. If you are interested in joining the pilot program, you will receive a discounted rate and a chance to have your input into what you would like to see in the program. CEUs are not yet available during this pilot phase.

This self-paced training has been created to help you find new ways to become relational with your residents and clients, work together as a greater community of care partners, and discover ways to use creativity to help cultivate purposed filled programming and person-centered care.

Creative Engagement isn't only an activities approach. It is a model for the full picture of care. If you leave it up to the Activities team to understand and use Creative Engagement, you are missing a big piece of the pie.

And, as an added bonus, it is an evidenced-based model and a growing methodology of care.

Designed for the Busy Person

Explore at your own pace, uncovering the beauty of fully using our gifts and skills.

We crave connection and community. All of us have something to contribute to building those connections with those we serve. We are creative, talented, kind individuals seeking to advance our craft in ways that allow us to be even more impactful. So let’s come together to magnify what we have so that we can build out an ArtBin of skills and support for the dementia journey.

Participants will move through 4 models (20 lessons), learning new tools and approaches for creative engagement, building person-centered programs and breaking down the silos within our communities. Those who participate will have the chance to participate in weekly mentorship sessions and a roundtable conversation with others taking the course.

A seasoned professional or a student interested in entering the caring professions, and everyone in-between will walk away with a community and an “ArtBin” filled with the skills need navigate and magnify the beauty of our humanity.

By participating in this course, you not only will open doors for your own professional development, but the funds of this program go directly to help family care partners access the training they need to best support their loved ones at no cost to them.

Participants Will Explore

Create

Programming rooted in dignity and purpose and meets both the standards and regulations set before you and beyond.

Support

Residents and clients as they seek to live the best life they can regardless of the trials they encounter.

Magnify

The skills and talents you bring to your role as a professional care partner or senior living leader.

Connect

Families, residents/clients and the greater community to each other, weaving back together a community free from isolation.

Grow

A staff that works together in care, eliminating silos between Sales and Activities, HR and Nursing.

Make Real

Becoming that person-centered care community you strive for, as you become an industry leader.

Magnify the Gifts You Have To Give

Enroll Today to take advantage of the pilot program pricing.

Cost of Program: $250
Enroll before December 31st: $197

Class begins January 3rd, 2024

Included in this Course

*Lifetime access to recorded videos for each lesson. Always receiving the latest version.

*PDF Workbook for you to print and use throughout each module.

*Mentorship and Roundtable Sessions to bring the information to life.

Curriculum

Introduction

Lesson 0: Welcome and Thank You

Set up Mentorship

PDF Download: Full Workbook

The Art of Accompaniment

Lesson 1: What is Accompaniment

Lesson 2: Ways of Communication

Lesson 3: Professional Accompaniment

Activity - Engagement - Enrichment

Lesson 4: What is an Activity

Lesson 5: What is Engagement

Lesson 6: What is Enrichment

Lesson 7: Striving for Enrichment while working with Activities

Lesson 8: How All Staff are part of the Life Enrichment Team

Lesson 9: Uncovering Evidenced Based Approaches

Working Together to Create a Community of Purpose

Lesson 10: Creating Our Own Care Team

Lesson 12: Magnifying and Examining the Gifts and Talents We Bring to Our Role.

Lesson 13: Weaving Together and Interdepartmental Model of Care

Transforming Challenges into Beautiful Moments of Connection

Lesson 15: Seeing Behavior as an Invitation

Lesson 16: Understanding One’s Story

Lesson 17: Inviting Family Into Care

Lesson 19: Curiosity and Compassion When the Day is Tough

Lesson 20: Entering into Research, Resting in Humanity

Your Guide

Hi! I’m Kate Fassbender. With over 20 years of experience accompanying those living with dementia, and almost 10 years of being a dementia educator, I have walked this journey as a volunteer, family care partner, student, and professional care partner in a range of settings. I know firsthand the struggles of care, but I also know the joys. During our time together, we will uncover new ways of being in dementia care.

I created my first life enrichment program for those living with dementia while still a middle school student, and have not stopped exploring ways to improve and expand my craft in creative aging. I believe we all have something to offer the greater care partner community through our lessons, studies, and experiences.

I have worked with the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, various art museums throughout New York and Wisconsin, Renewal Memory Partners, Fox Valley Memory Project, TimeSlips, and Atria Assisted Living to name a few. And, have spoken internationally on creative engagement, dementia, and magnifying the important of professional care partner connection.

Full Details

Questions? Email Kate at Kate@dementialettersproject.com or
Text her at 920-268-4554

Themes

The Art of Accompaniment

Activity – Engagement – Enrichment

Working Together to Create a Community of Purpose

Transforming Challenges into Beautiful Moments of Connection

Problems Solved and Outcomes

Burnout? Staffing Silos? Quick Turnover? Residents experiencing isolation within your community? These are three of the problems we will solve during our time together.

At the end of the 20 lessons you will have also learned new ways to build a community for yourself as a care partner while fostering a community for your residents/clients, You will have developed up to 4 programs specifically for your community, and discovered ways to offer programming that is creativity, purpose-filled, and new while still fulfilling the regulations you are required to follow.

Who Is This For?

Professional Care Partners working in Senior Living and Care (especially those in non-medical care)

Students and Individuals looking to enter activities or senior living professions.

Cost

$197 (Introductory Price)

$250 (If Registering after December 31st)

Special Pricing for Full Staff: $1,798 during Pilot Phase only.

Dates

Rolling Admission, so join when you are ready. You can expect to receive the modules no later than 24 hours after enrollment.

Mentorship calls are held on Wednesday and Thursdays at a time determined individually by each participant.

Roundtable Sessions held on the 4th Friday of the month at 11:00 Eastern.

Location

Materials: Email and Online

Mentorship and Roundtable Sessions: Zoom

Content Ownership

Dementia Letters Project and Kathryne Fassbender own this course, however, you will receive lifetime access to the program to revisit as needed.

Each participant must register for themselves unless purchased at the group rate for your entire staff.

Individuals will have lifetime access to the program.

Organizations will have 1 year of access, and must repurchase after 1 year if desired.

Registration

Registration is 2 Parts.

First fill out the form with your details and then pay for the course. You have only registered after you have successful completed both tasks.

Complete the two steps here: https://dementialettersproject.com/register/

Let us Connect as a community and Create for a more joyful life.

The Connect and Create Institute

Let us dare to explore the unknown.
Let us come together to connect and to create.

The Connect and Create Institute started as a small online conference for Life Enrichment Specialists back in 2018 in hopes that every care partner could be supported in networking with others in similar roles, and grow in knowledge and skills to navigate the day-to-day of senior living programming. Today, I am re-launching the Connect and Create Institute to better address the trials and uplift the triumphs of non-medical care partners and support new care partners as they enter their professional life.

We know that insolation is devastating to our health and care partners are equally, if not more, susceptible to loneliness. We also know that when taking a broad look at the professional landscape, care partners in dementia are undertrained by 230-280* hours of formal education. Not to mention the lack of support for family care partners. This gap in education in multiplied for those working in activities and through social connection means in our senior living communities, care organizations, and in our homes. The Connect and Create Institute is a place where we can bridge the gap between professional development, community, and service.

*When we look at an average Activities Director only needing 180 of specified training, if required at all.