In May 2018, our Facilities Manager, Lauren Clarke, and freelance Project Manager, Lily Craig, attended an enlightening four-day training course provided by the University of Bradford: Dementia Care Mapping™ for Realising Person Centred Care.

Dementia Care Mapping™ (DCM) is a recognised approach to achieving person centred care and improving the quality of life for people living with dementia. It involves observing how people spend their time, their levels of mood and engagement, and the types and quality of interactions they have. The “mapper” will have a clear understanding of the person’s experiences which will allow them to see what is working well or where there are areas for development.

The training taught Lauren and Lily how to recognise behaviours and code these, measure mood and engagement levels and code these, analyse the data of both individual participants and larger groups, and finally report on their findings.

“I found the DCM training incredibly interesting and enjoyed training alongside people who will be using the tool for such different purposes, such as by care home staff for resident assessment and care planning, by University academics for research, and by other arts organisations for impact measurement.” Lauren Clarke

Lauren and Lily are lucky enough to be mentored throughout their journey as Dementia Care Mappers by Lisa Heller. Lisa is an experienced mapper and has worked with Yorkshire Dance on our We Danced in Sheffield.

Lisa was instrumental in developing our understanding of DCM and in supporting us to secure funding for our new project, In Mature Company.

In Mature Company is a three-year project, part of Time to Shine, a six-year programme delivered by Leeds Older People’s Forum and funded through Big Lottery Fund Ageing Better.

The project will work closely with nine care homes across Leeds. In each care home there will be a creative programme led by two dance artists and one musician. The sessions will be designed to improve the lives of residents. DCM will play an integral part in the project as Lauren and Lily will use the tool to enable us to measure the impact of the dance sessions on resident’s levels of happiness and wellbeing. We hope by using DCM, we can explore how to get the most positive results possible from the project.

“Training to become a Dementia Care Mapper has been an enlightening process that has equipped me with the knowledge and understanding of how we can use this resource as a tool to develop artistic practice. I’m excited and intrigued to implement DCM within ‘In Mature Company’ to see how we can improve the lives of those living with dementia.” Lily Craig

We’ll be telling you a lot more about In Mature Company in the coming months so watch this space!