Your memory care community is at a critical moment. Demand for care exceeds the number of people you can serve well, so you are faced with a challenge: build or remodel?
Before you move forward, ask a simple but powerful question: How do we make dignity and person-centered living real, especially in the moments that matter most?
A beautiful new memory care building with an undesigned program is an expensive way to disappoint families. What would change at your community if the program was optimized by experienced experts who know that care goes beyond drywall and paint?
Person-centered memory care must be designed into a community, not added after the fact. At ForgeWorks, our C2S: Challenges to Solutions training gives teams the tools, confidence, and support they need to make that philosophy real. Melody Karick, dementia educator and visionary behind Meadow View, a nationally award-winning memory care community, brings more than 26 years of experience to this work. Melody helps teams understand how the brain changes, recognize dementia behaviors as expressions of unmet needs, and build practical skills they can use every day.
Part of the C2S training, the Dementia Experience creates immediate insight into what it can feel like to live with dementia by temporarily altering participants’ senses. In partnership with WellSpan Ephrata Community Hospital, Melody helped increase team members’ understanding of dementia and confidence in dementia care by more than 40%, reaching 88% and 93%, respectively. Teams are most likely to adapt to new ideas when training is reinforced with ongoing support. ForgeWorks provides real-time coaching, mentoring, and long-term reinforcement to help new skills move from the classroom into daily practice.
