On April 19th, 2013, 33 members of the Partnerships in Dementia Care (PiDC) Alliance met for a day long retreat. Participants included members of the Research Management Team, members of each of the Huron County, Yee Hong and Partnering Together for Change Culture Change Coalitions (CCC) and the
This was a big meeting. All of our Discovery recruitment materials are ready to be distributed and we are planning to begin our Discovery interviews and sessions within the next few weeks.
At this meeting, we prepared for Discovery by sharing tips and strategies for leading successful interviews/focus groups and keeping discussions positive and appreciative. We decided to skip our May meeting since we are all busy with Discovery, and we will meet back in June to debrief.
Happy Anniversary! The Huron County CCC has been meeting for one year now.
As our Discovery planning is become more finalized and ‘real’, we feel we are making progress and are finally working towards something tangible. As the members say, we can “see a light at the end of the tunnel”.
We began our meeting with a fun ice breaker that really got us laughing and having fun. We noted that having fun, and focusing on the positive (appreciative) aspects of life is important, especially since the dementia journey can sometimes be a very negative or challenging one.
As I wrote about in my last post, we spent time in our last meeting critically reflecting on where we are and what we are doing. The group felt unsure of their role and our purpose. As a result, we thought it was important to take time in this meeting to regroup and refocus our efforts.
Zara, our current Knowledge Translation Specialist, was recently hired and attended our meeting this month. Welcome, Zara!
We began revising our Discovery questions to make them more accessible and relevant to our group. We recognised that the ‘circle of care’ for community clients may be broader, including friends, neighbours, relatives and so forth, and that relationships are very important at all levels – in the community, in long-term care homes, and in families.
As the membership of our group continued to grow and I struggled to understand how all of these community organisations and groups relate with one another.