Deepening Your Person-Centered, Dementia Care Practice: A Learning and Relearning Journey
A training series for nursing home staff
In collaboration with the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS) as part of the agency’s Nursing Facility Quality Improvement Program (NFQIP), VCU Gerontology brings you Deepening Your Person-Centered, Dementia Care Practice: A Learning and Relearning Journey, a series of 12 free webinars on person-centered dementia care. In this series you will be challenged to think differently about what person-centered dementia care is, and how you put it into practice in your nursing home.
Upcoming Session
Creating a Learning Community
In this session, we will unpack what it means to be a learning community and why that is important to person-centered dementia care. We will explore that a learning community is not about cookie cutter solutions but hardwiring curiosity, creativity, and problem solving into everything we do.
August 12, 2026
1:00pm - 3:00pm ET
Three things that are unique about Deepening Your Person-Centered, Dementia Care Practice:
- It is about unlearning as well as learning.
- We will offer a Huddle Up a month after each webinar so you may ask any questions, share your successes or mishaps, and listen to how others are doing.
- We will present the information so you can teach your teams to fish and not just tell them where to get the fish dinner.
Deepening Your Person-Centered, Dementia Care Practice: A Learning and Relearning Journey includes three parts.
Part One: The Person in Person-Centered Dementia Care
We start with the person with dementia.
Understanding the individual behind the dementia is at the core of person-centered dementia care. This is where it all starts – seeing each person for their unique experiences, preferences, and values that shape who they are. From here, we can tailor interactions and support with people with dementia so that they can live well.
Session 1: Person-Centered Dementia Care: Unpacking the Who, What, Where, Why and How
Live Webinar
August 13, 2025, 1:00pm – 3:00pm ET
Huddle-Up
September 10, 2025, 1:00pm – 2:00pm ET
In this session, we covered what we mean by person-centered dementia care and what we don’t mean. What do we need to learn and unlearn? We explored who the person is in person-centered care, and what it looks like to start with the person as we think about putting person-centered care into practice.
Session 2: Say What? Re-Learning Communication
Live webinar: October 8, 2025, 1:00pm – 3:00pm ET
Huddle-Up: November 12, 2025, 1:00pm – 2:00pm ET
In this session we explored what person-centered communication looks like with people living with dementia and among teams working nursing homes. We considered person-centered approaches to listening, interpreting non-verbal communication, awareness of our own non-verbal (embodied communication) and taking an intentional stance toward communication.
Resources from session:
Session 2 Recording | Session 2 Slide Deck | Relearning Communication hand out
Hand in Hand Video 1: Demonstrating some errors in communication | Hand in Hand Video 2: Demonstrating person-centered communication
(Good Morning videos acknowledgement: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Hand in Hand Curriculum, 2012)
Session 3: Unlearning Behavior Management
Live Webinar: December 10, 2025, 1:00pm – 3:00pm ET
Huddle-Up: January 21, 2026, 1:00pm – 2:00pm ET
In this session, we worked to unlearn some of the ideas we have about “behaviors” of people living with dementia and how we respond to them. What can we learn and unlearn?
Resources from session:
Session 4: Applying the Why & Understanding Actions & Reactions
Live Webinar: February 11, 2026, 1:00pm - 3:00pm ET
Huddle-Up: March 11, 2026, 1:00pm - 2:00pm ET
What can we learn and unlearn related to how we see “behaviors”? In session four of Part One of Deepening Your Person-Centered, Dementia Care Practice: A Learning and Relearning Journey, we learned about the importance of asking why to understand the perspective and experience of people living with dementia so we can better respond to them and meet their needs, based on who they are and what is important to them.
Resources from session:
Part Two: Leading for Person-Centered Dementia Care
The second part of Deepening Your Person-Centered, Dementia Care Practice: A Learning and Relearning Journey focuses on leaders and how to lead to put person-centered dementia care into practice. What do we need to learn and unlearn about leading for person-centered dementia care?
Session 1: Leading in a Person-Centered Way: How Do YOU Lead?
In the first session of the second part of Deepening Your Person-Centered, Dementia Care Practice: A Learning and Relearning Journey, we will explore person-centered leadership - who is a leader and what does it mean to lead in a person-centered way. We will do some self-exploration of your leadership styles by looking at examples of how you might put person-centered dementia care into practice.
Live Webinar: April 15, 2026, 1:00pm - 3:00pm ET
Huddle-Up: May 20, 2026, 1:00pm - 2:00pm ET
Session 2: All Hands on Deck: It Takes a Village to Do Person-Centered Dementia Care
In this session, we focused on the idea that, in order to truly practice person-centered dementia care, each team member plays a part. This means everyone: nurses, nurse aides, housekeepers, life enrichment folks, maintenance,receptionists etc. What does this look like? How do you take steps to have all hands on deck?
Live Webinar: June, 10 2026, 1:00pm - 3:00pm ET
Huddle-Up: July 8, 2026, 1:00pm - 2:00pm ET
Part 2 Session 2 Recording | Part 2 Session 2 Slidedeck and Handouts
Session 3: Creating a Learning Community
In this session, we will unpack what it means to be a learning community and why that is important to person-centered dementia care. We will explore that a learning community is not about cookie cutter solutions but hardwiring curiosity, creativity, and problem solving into everything we do.
Live Webinar: August 12, 2026, 1:00pm - 3:00pm ET
Huddle-Up: September 9, 2026, 1:00pm - 2:00pm ET
(Registering for the webinar automatically registers you for the optional Huddle-Up)
Session 4: Why Families and Volunteers are Important
In this session, we will explore how families and volunteers are key parts of person-centered dementia care and can help support both people with dementia and your team.
Live Webinar: October 14, 2026, 1:00pm - 3:00pm ET
Huddle-Up: November 18, 2026, 1:00pm - 2:00pm ET
(Registering for the webinar automatically registers you for the optional Huddle-Up)
Part Three: Enhancing with Extraordinary Everydayness
The third part of Deepening Your Person-Centered, Dementia Care Practice: A Learning and Relearning Journey focuses on the daily experiences of people with dementia and how we can make their days better. What do we need to learn and unlearn?
Live Webinar and Huddle Up Dates TBD: 2027-2028
Session 1: Take a Real Dementia Tour: Listen to People Living with Dementia
In the first session of the third part of Deepening Your Person-Centered, Dementia Care Practice: A Learning and Relearning Journey, we start again with the importance of hearing the voices of people living with dementia themselves, which is really the best way we can understand the experience of dementia. In this webinar, learn ways you can pay attention to the everyday, real voices of people with dementia who you support and use that to educate your team and change your practices.
Session 2: Extraordinary Everydayness: Everything Can Be Engagement
In this session, we will explore the idea of extraordinary everydayness and how to use normalcy of daily life to support people living with dementia to live full lives that are driven by what is important to them. What do we need to learn and unlearn?
Session 3: Enhancing Daily Life for Persons living with Dementia Part A: Sleeping/Waking
In this session, we will go to the nitty-gritty of daily life for people living with dementia and how we can make it better. Our sleep and how we start the day are important and unique to each of us, and this is no different for people living with dementia.
Session 4: Enhancing Daily Life for Persons living with Dementia Part B: Dining/Drinking
In the last session of the series, we will get to a part of daily life that is likely a big part of all of our days - FOOD! What we like to drink! We will brainstorm how we can make good days for people living with dementia through thinking differently about dining.
How to Attend Deepening Your Person-Centered, Dementia Care Practice: A Learning and Relearning Journey
Please register for each individual Session. A single registration enrolls you in the live webinar and optional Huddle Up. We suggest you aim to participate in all 12 live webinars. However, we know things come up, so each webinar and Huddle-Up will be recorded so you can access them after the live webinar. Links to the recordings will be emailed to registrants and posted on this page.
Keep in mind that ALL team members in a nursing home have the opportunity of supporting residents living with dementia, not just nursing. We encourage you to join the webinars with a team - perhaps a dedicated Memory Care Team or maybe an interdisciplinary group of staff who are interested in dementia care.
Your Host
Gigi Amateau, MS, PhD
Gigi Amateau serves as Assistant Professor and Person-Centered, Trauma-Informed Care Lab Director for the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Department of Gerontology and Virginia Center on Aging. In her role with VCU, she focuses on person-centered, trauma-informed care for nursing homes, capacity-building within the home and community-based services network, and teaching in the graduate program, where she integrates poetry, film, and humanities as tools for building person-centered, trauma-informed skills. She is a certified personal care aide in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a certified yoga instructor with Yoga Alliance, a YWCA Richmond Pat Asch Social Justice Fellow, and a Health Equity Faculty Fellow with the VCU Health Humanities Lab.
Your Presenters
Sonya Barsness
Sonya is a gerontologist with 30 years of experience in long-term care and dementia. After working in nursing homes and senior living, she became a consultant to help organizations put person-centered values into practice. She is considered a national expert on person-centered dementia care. Sonya is adjunct faculty with Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Gerontology.
Karen Stobbe
Karen is an improv actor, and family caregiver to both parents turned professional educator and consultant in person-centered dementia care. Karen is also considered a national expert in person-centered dementia care.
Sonya and Karen co-developed CMS’ Hand in Hand training program and have worked with several culture change models to advance how we support people living and working in long-term care. They have worked with many communities to improve their dementia care. They are passionate about helping put person-centered principles into practice and changing the conversation about how we support people living with dementia. Learn more about Sonya's and Karen's values.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Certificates of Attendance rather than CEUs will be offered to registered participants who attend the live webinar and complete a post-survey. Engagement is an important part of this series. Certificates will be offered to people who attended at least 75% of the session and who participate in at least 75% of polls, questions, or breakout activities.
You may attend any or all of the webinars!
Everyone who works in a nursing home, and anyone who is interested in learning more about person-centered dementia care.
Select one person from your team to register for each session. At the end of the session, registered participants will receive a post-training evaluation survey to complete. This survey will include instructions on how to share the names and email addresses of each team member, so that we may email each person an evaluation survey to complete, so that they can also receive a certificate of attendance.
For technical support, please email nico@worldeventsforum.com
Questions? Contact Gigi Amateau at amateaugg@vcu.edu.
A VCU Gerontology project in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS) as part of the agency’s Nursing Facility Quality Improvement Program (NFQIP) and co-produced with World Events Forum.
