New to Best Friends? Our introductory training will get you familiar with the approach!
Learn how you can make people with dementia feel safe, secure, and valued by following the acclaimed Best Friends™ approach to care. This relationship-centered care model is easy to understand and brings out the best in people with dementia – and also in staff. Not only will your residents or clients benefit, but you will see how activities, mealtimes, and personal care go more smoothly and your days are more enjoyable.
This virtual training program introduces the core elements of the life-affirming Best Friends™ approach in 4 hours of interactive learning spread across one day. The training is led by a Best Friends™ Expert Leader, who is either the model’s founder or a long-time practitioner and trainer of this life-affirming approach.
In two 2-hour training sessions, participants will learn how to
- Embrace friendship to ease the dementia experience
- Use each person’s life story
- Communicate skillfully
- Understand and minimize behaviors that challenge us
- Provide meaningful engagement
- Develop the Best Friends Knack of Caregiving
The Best Friends approach is valuable to anyone working with people who live with memory loss. This includes home care settings, adult day services, assisted living, skilled nursing, acute care, and hospice. It is effective for nursing staff, activity professionals, social workers, care managers, administrators, and frontline caregivers.
Give yourself or your team the indispensable skills of a Best Friends caregiver in this lively, Zoom-based training program.
Registration fee: $225 per person
Sample 1-day training schedule
| Session 1 | |
| 11:00am–1:00pm EST | The Building Blocks of Best Friends |
| The Experience of Dementia | |
| The Knack of Caregiving | |
| Maximizing the Life Story | |
| Session 2 | |
| 2:00pm–4:00pm EST | Communicating Skillfully |
| Understanding Behaviors That Challenge Us | |
| Meaningful Engagement | |
| Benefits of a Best Friends Environment | |