CAC's Training Research Institute Exceeds Its Goals
04/25/2007
CAC staff
Launched in Sept. 2005 with funding from the Administration on Aging, CAC's Training Research Institute (TRI) aims to improve our long term care workforce.
Training is mandated in long term care. Yet thus far, training evaluations haven't told us much about them. Evaluation forms tend to focus on the temperature in the room, or the preparedness of the speaker. But there are deeper issues at play. Does a training actually translate into better care? A better quality of life for those receiving the care? For the workers?
CAC formed TRI to set up an infrastructure to get those answers. It was a challenging mission. Every training has different goals and is aimed at different staff positions. But in just 18 months, TRI's efforts exceeded their goals.
Co-Directors Rhonda Montgomery and Anne Basting assembled an interdisciplinary team of researchers to create templates to evaluate trainings aimed at clinical nursing home staff, nursing assistants, and family caregivers. They selected pilot evaluations that would test run these templates, including an evaluation of Dr. Kovach's Serial Trial Intervention training; Dr. Basting's creative storytelling intervention; the well established Powerful Tools for Caregivers training; and a newly created Dementia Care Specialist training.
TRI continues today. Dr. Savundranayagam has secured funding to continue her work on Powerful Tools for Caregivers. The three Wisconsin chapters of the Alzheimer's Association have contracted with CAC to put the evaluation protocol designed in the first year of TRI into action by assessing the impact of their popular Dementia Care Specialist Training.
training and evaluation page
For information, please contact Thomas Fritsch 414.229.2729
