New to Best Friends? Our introductory training will get you familiar with the approach!
- Date:July 17, 2025
- Time:2:30–4:30 EST
- Registration Fee:$75 per person
- Registration deadline:July 10, 2025
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 2 hours of interactive learning. 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.
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.
Trainer(s)
Taylor Pennie
With a background in recreational therapy, Taylor has worked for 10 years for the regional Kentucky-based operator Christian Care Communities. She served as the Program Director at The Best Friends Day Center for 8 years, becoming a Certified Best Friends™ Master Trainer soon after joining the Center. Her responsibilities included training new staff and volunteers.
Currently, she is Memory Care & Social Services Director for Christian Care’s Bridgepoint Assisted Living site.
In addition to promoting Best Friends principles, Taylor is a Support Group Facilitator for the Alzheimer’s Association and is committed to enhancing the quality of life for all those living with dementia and their families.
