Our resources and qualifications will help you deliver better care for people living with dementia.
With the right skills and knowledge, staff can provide a good quality of life at every stage of the condition, allowing people living with dementia to remain active and engaged, for as long as possible.
Skills for Care is proud to be a partner of Dementia Action Alliance. You can read about our commitment to this in our action plan.
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Learn what to look out for in those you support that could mean they have dementia and what you need to do to help them. The sooner someone gets a diagnosis, the sooner they and their families can get the best help.
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Enabling leaders and managers in social care to support and develop their workforce who are working with people living with dementia from different cultures and backgrounds.
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Helps you develop your workforce so that they can deliver the highest quality of care within domiciliary care services.
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Learn how to care for and improve the experience for people living with dementia. They are relevant to every setting and provide a basis for a general understanding of people living with dementia.
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A practical guide for managers with good practice case studies and examples about the role of workforce planning and development to improve the standard of care for people living with dementia.
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Aimed at leaders and managers working in these services in particular and helps you develop your workforce so that they can deliver the highest quality of care within domiciliary care services.
Qualifications and training
Specific dementia qualifications are available at level 2 and 3, in addition to the dementia pathways within the level 2 and 3 diplomas. You can also search the endorsed provider directory for shorter courses delivered by recommended learning and development providers from Skills for Care.
Learning and development should focus on the practical skills workers need to do their job but also keeping the values they need to put them in practice. A key part of selecting the right learning package for your organisation is finding the right learning provider. Eligible adult social care employers in England will soon be able to claim reimbursement for training costs for qualifying staff through the new Adult Social Care Training and Development Fund.
e-learning
The e-LfH website offers easy to use public access e-learning on dementia awareness.
Working with carers
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A practical guide providing advice for care workers on the typical experiences of family and friends who are caring for someone who is living with dementia and the support they need. We developed it with Dementia UK and it can be used in all settings.
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Resources for care workers supporting the family and friends of people with dementia supports the main guide with further useful information about support following a diagnosis, social care assessments, living independently in advanced stages of dementia and the legal and financial implications of a diagnosis.
Dementia friendly communities
Our staff have joined the Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Friends programme - the biggest ever initiative to change people’s perceptions of dementia.
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This report talks about a pilot project we funded in 2013 as part of the Alzheimer's Society Dementia Friendly Communities programme. The aim of the pilot was to improve inclusion and quality of life for people living with dementia.
Best practice
If you’re looking for new and innovative ways to improve the quality of care you provide take a look at Learn from Others and select 'dementia care' under areas of interest.
Find out about good practice in other organisations and learn from some their challenges. It is valuable in helping make the best use of often limited resources.
Reminiscence with the sporting memories network
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For managers who are supporting staff looking after people in the advanced stages of dementia. Using a series of case studies, it's designed to help managers develop and support their staff. It helps leaders and managers in developing their workforces to enable them to provide the highest quality care.
Dementia Core Skills Education and Training Framework
In 2018, a review of the original ‘Dementia Core Skills Education and Training Framework’ includes a number of additions regarding food, drink and oral health and the updated framework was re-titled the 'Dementia Training Standards Framework'. Complete the Registraton of interest to be alerted to future updates.
Managing success in dementia care is a document produced to help people implement the framework in their organisation. The framework comprises of three tiers; awareness, basic skills and leadership which reflect the role and degree of contact different staff have with people living with dementia.
- It's up to managers and training leads to determine how the learning outcomes are met and this can be in a variety of different ways.
- The document is designed to identify resources you can use to deliver education and training activities at tier 2. Each section provides an overview of the subject area, explanations of the learning outcomes and signposts to relevant freely available resources or information.
- These can be used to supplement existing training provision, or combined with additional resources to create new training programmes.