Course Overview

Introduction

In dementia care, it is easy for people to slowly become described by tasks, behaviours, or diagnoses.

Someone who spent decades working, raising a family, making decisions, and shaping a life can begin to appear in documentation simply as:

“Requires assistance.”
“Displays behaviours.”
“Needs supervision.”

But a person does not begin the day they enter a care setting.

They arrive with a lifetime behind them.

This course introduces the foundations of narrative care — an approach that keeps a person’s life story visible, even as dementia changes memory, communication, and independence.

Because when memory falters, story does not disappear.

It simply needs to be carried differently.

What This Course Explores

This course introduces narrative as a way of understanding identity in dementia care.

Participants will explore:

  • Why story is central to how people understand their lives
  • The difference between knowing facts about a person and understanding their story
  • How care systems can unintentionally narrow identity
  • How narrative continuity can be carried across shifts and teams
  • How everyday interactions protect — or thin — a person’s sense of self

Who This Course Is For

This course is designed for people working across care environments, including:

  • Personal support workers and care aides
  • Nurses and direct care staff
  • Recreation and engagement teams
  • Supervisors and managers
  • Educators and practice leaders

It is particularly valuable for teams who want to create a true sense of home by keeping each person’s life and identity visible in daily care.

What Participants Will Gain

  • By the end of this course, participants will:
  • Understand why identity in dementia care is deeply connected to story
  • Recognise how narrative can be unintentionally lost in busy care environments
  • Learn to notice moments where identity is protected or narrowed
  • Strengthen the ability to carry a person’s story forward in everyday practice

Format

  • 30–45 minute on-demand course
  • Plain text learning modules
  • Opening and closing audio reflections by Daphne Noonan, Co-Founder of Person Centred Universe
  • Suitable for individual learning or team reflection


Course curriculum

    1. Welcome

    1. If we are our stories.

    2. Describing yourself.

    3. Story gives coherence.

    4. A life that has been lived.

    5. The life still happened.

    6. And yet...

    7. While the thread still exists.

    8. A change of form.

    9. Where narrative care begins.

    10. Without narrative thinking.

    11. Identity shrinks.

    12. A life is still unfolding.

    13. Honouring the story.

    14. Before We Continue

    1. Information is not the same as story.

    2. What vs. why.

    3. Roles vs. meaning.

    4. What we record.

    5. Consider this.

    6. Language shifts perception.

    7. The narrative thread.

    8. The questions matter.

    9. Catching the narrative.

    10. Responding to meaning.

    11. Keeping whole.

    12. Changing atmosphere.

    13. Centred on meaning.

    14. Before We Continue

    1. Quiet erosion.

    2. Transferring the story.

    3. Narrowing continuity.

    4. Task segmentation

    5. Time pressure.

    6. Language breaks.

    7. Clinical clarity.

    8. Story is less visible.

    9. Focus on urgency.

    10. Transitions.

    11. Shrinking.

    12. Protecting the thread.

    13. Before We Continue

    1. Story becomes relational.

    2. Through ordinary moments.

    3. Through tone.

    4. Meaning in small differences.

    5. Finding context.

    6. Holding continuity.

    7. Some of those moments.

    8. Verbal and non-verbal.

    9. The quiet work.

    10. People arrive with decades behind them.

    11. Assistance becomes partnership.

    12. A shared role.

    13. Connecting.

    14. Before We Continue

    1. Narrowing.

    2. Loss.

    3. Behaviour replaces biography.

    4. Diagnosis defines.

    5. Short future outweighs long past.

    6. Protection resists.

    7. Room for dignity.

    8. Identity is still present.

    9. Depth to interaction.

    10. Maybe as simple as.

    11. Personhood.

    12. When teams practice narrative protection.

    13. Carrying the story forward.

    14. Before We Continue

About this course

  • $79.00
  • 30–45 minute on-demand course
  • Plain text learning modules
  • Opening and closing audio reflections by Daphne Noonan, Co-Founder of Person Centred Universe

Strengthen how your team understands and carries the stories that shape person‑centred care.

Click here to purchase the course!