Training update from the Association for Dementia Studies

The Meeting Centres training course was developed by the Association for Dementia Studies (ADS), University of Worcester and has been running online since 2021. We’re delighted that Meeting Centres Scotland is going to be facilitating several cohorts of the training to help meet the growing demand – particularly with the number of Scottish Meeting Centres seeming to increase on an almost daily basis!

As we’ve just developed two new courses, we wanted to provide a quick round-up of the training options available via ADS:

· Volunteers – we know that volunteers at Meeting Centres aren’t always able to commit to the full 5-week training course, so we’ve got a shorter version that they can access. It’s completely self-guided and volunteers can work through it individually or come together as a group. Find out more here.

· Students – quite a few Meeting Centres are starting to support university students on placements, and if you want them to know a bit more about dementia and Meeting Centres before they start, this self-guided course is a good place to look. Find out more here.

· Pioneer workshops – previously, if people wanted to understand more about what Meeting Centres are and how to get started if they are looking to establish one in their local community, ADS would try to go out and deliver a Pioneer Workshop in each location. This isn’t always an option for various reasons, but we didn’t want people to miss out. So, we created a short course that covers all the topics that would normally be part of a Pioneer Workshop. You can do this on your own or get together a group of like-minded people to learn more. You can enrol on this course via this link.

· Data collection – we try to talk with individual Meeting Centres who want to learn more about potential data collection activities, but again this isn’t always possible. This short course takes you through the different aspects of data collection and how to get started, breaking it down into small, non-scary steps. You can enrol on this course via this link.

Alongside the Meeting Centres Scotland online academy, you should now have a variety of options available to you to learn more about different aspects of Meeting Centres. Are there any other topics that you want to know about?