Ambassador Programme for secondary schools.
Two groups of Transition Year students ( 4.2/4.4) attended the Ambassador Programme for secondary schools on Monday, April 12th.This programme was delivered , on line, by a team from Saint Joseph’s ,Shankill , Dublin. St Joseph’s is the largest home in Ireland solely dedicated to dementia care. It is a Butterfly Home, accredited by Meaningful Care Matters.
The programme covered the following:
What is dementia?
Introduction to Saint Joseph’s Shankill
Introduction to the type of care provided in a Butterfly Home
How to communicate with people living with dementia
This programme will be delivered to 4.1 and 4.3 on Thursday , April 28th.
Student’s Response to this Programme
We learned a lot of new things about dementia that we didn’t know or have experiences with before.
We experienced different emotions during the presentation.. some sadness was felt
St Josephs was presented as a place with a very happy environment for people with dementia (the nice pictures of their butterfly clinic), which left us feeling good
People were given a starting point on how to cope and deal with someone who has dementia and how to approach/speak to someone with it.
We feel it is important for us to have knowledge on this topic.We , therefore,recommend it for next year's Transition Year students.
We shared a conversation in the class about our experiences of dementia. People talked about their family and friends. There were positive and joyful stories as well as some upsetting ones. We talked about how witnessing the disease’s progress made us feel. It was nice to have an open and honest conversation about an issue that may affect us and family members at some stage.
Emily Henderson
St Joseph’s are also a Gaisce Challenge Partner and have developed a Transition Year Programme that can be done remotely for students working towards their Gaisce Bronze Award. There are 4 options:
· In the Spotlight – Zoom into one of our living rooms to play music or sing for the people in our care
· Get Creative – research and create a creative product for a person in our care
· Pitch Perfect – based on the popular show, Dragon’s Den, pitch a creative solution or aid for people living with dementia, their family members/carers or health care professionals working with people living with dementia.
· Future Philanthropist – plan and project manage a fundraising event to raise funds to support our work