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Join us for our Engage with® Older Adults at home Skills Training now!

Engage with® Older Adults at home Skills Training is designed to provide individual family members and professional caregivers the opportunity to develop and refine the skills necessary to care for and effectively support older adults aging in place at home.
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What is Engage with® at home  Skills Training Program

Our Family, Friends and Neighbors Lack Access to Necessary Skills Training

The United States is facing a crisis: a rapidly aging population with mental and behavioral health needs and a growing cohort of older adults and their families who want the older adult to be able to age in place at home. In addition, our family, friends, and neighbors lack access to the skills training necessary to support older adults to age in place. How are we going to deal with this dilemma?

Engage with® Older Adults at home Skills Training is a critical resource that is critical resource available to the public. This affordable, virtual, live, instructor-led skills training is evidenced based and is designed to help family, friends, and neighbors develop and improve critical skills that will help enrich the life of the older adult as well as relieve some of the burdens associated with partnering in care with an older adult who is aging in place at home.

Multi-colored circular shaped Training Schematic that shows how the Core Skills Training can stand alone and is also the foundation for the 5 available supplements.

Older Adults at home

Skills Training Module

The Engage with® Older Adults at home skills training module focuses on developing the skills necessary to work with, care for and/or support older adults aging in place during all phases of the aging process. The Older Adult at home module is virtual, live and instructor led.  It begins with the “Core Skills Training,” “What everyone needs to know.” It is a two-part, stand-alone, skills-based training that provides a comprehensive foundation of skills that have immediate practical applications for its attendees. The Core Skills training introduces the Engage with® approach and is required prior to attending any of the available Skills Supplements.
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Multi-colored circular shaped Training Schematic that shows how the Core Skills Training can stand alone and is also the foundation for the 5 available supplements.

Core Skills: What Everyone Needs to Know

  1. Demonstrate respect
  2. Reduce the impact of stigma
  3. Active listening
  4. Non-verbal communication
  5. Verbal expression
  6. Engage in meaningful ways
  7. Identify risk factors for suicide
  8. De-escalate

Learning Objectives

  1. Apply skills that enhance their ability to effectively engage with older adults.
  2. Explain the behavioral health issues that affect some older adults.
  3. Examine how age-related changes in our body impacts our ability to process and recover from the effects of medications, illicit drugs and alcohol.
  4. Describe the normal aging process.
  5. Summarize the “new” culture of aging.
  6. Identify how the older adult views themselves, including their experiences and perspective, expectations, and needs.
  7. Classify stigma as it relates to aging.
  8. Use purposeful communication, including active listening, non-verbal and verbal communication.
  9. Distinguish the risk factors that increase an older adult’s risk of suicide.
  10. Give examples of how to de-escalate an irritated or aggressive older adult.

Following completion of the Core Skills training, there are five 2-hour supplements available which can be “mixed and matched” to meet your individual needs.

2-HOUR SUPPLEMENT MODULE

Responding to Mental Health Issues

Participants will develop and/or refine skills in the following areas:

  • Redefine perspectives
  • Intervene to reduce suicide risk
  • Deal effectively with anxiety
  • Use a trauma informed approach

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

  1. Explain mental health issues in older adults and their special needs.
  2. Identify the risk factors that lead to late life mental health disorders.
  3. Give examples of how mental illness can affect all aspects of an older adult’s life.
  4. Define the terms “psychosis” and “trauma.”
  5. Apply strategies to prevent and reduce resistance to care (RTC) in those living with mental health disorders.

2-HOUR SUPPLEMENT MODULE

Understanding Substance Use and Medication Misuse

Participants will develop and/or refine skills in the following areas:

  • Identify signs of substance use
  • Match drug to effect
  • Communicate concerns about use
  • Help make an informed decision
  • Set and own goals

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

  1. Explain why substance use and medication misuse can be a problem for older adults.
  2. Identify the special needs of older adults who use substances.
  3. Describe the theory of addiction.
  4. List risk factors for substance use and medication misuse in older adults.
  5. Describe how the person is affected by the substance, and what happens when the substance is no longer in their system.

2-HOUR SUPPLEMENT MODULE

Navigating Dementia & Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Participants will develop and/or refine skills in the following areas:

  • Identify early signs of dementia
  • Differentiate Dementia from Delirium
  • Be more helpful with TBI
  • Minimize the impact
  • Communicate concerns

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

  1. Describe the changes experienced by those with dementia.
  2. Apply strategies to slow the onset and worsening of dementia.
  3. Recognize the early signs and symptoms of dementia.
  4. Identify the difference between delirium and dementia.
  5. Give examples of how to be helpful for those living with a traumatic brain injury.

2-HOUR SUPPLEMENT MODULE

Managing Aggression

Participants will develop and/or refine skills in the following areas:

  • Communicate with purpose I—verbal
  • Use of Distraction
  • Establish safe negotiation zones
  • Communicate with purpose II—non-verbal
  • Intervene effectively

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

  1. Recognize how distraction can be helpful with some older adults.
  2. Define the “Aggressive Cycle.”
  3. Illustrate the importance of personal space.
  4. Give examples of how their body language can improve a difficult situation.
  5. Demonstrate skills to respond respectfully to common challenging behaviors.

2-HOUR SUPPLEMENT MODULE

Partnering In Care

Participants will develop and/or refine skills in the following areas:

  • Think like a partner
  • Understand core needs
  • Engage like a partner
  • Develop a self-care plan

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

  1. Identify the importance of thinking like a partner when working with and/or caring for older adults.
  2. Give examples of core needs and what happens when those needs are not met.
  3. Recognize the impact of stress on burnout.
  4. List the three (3) steps necessary to reduce stress.
  5. Summarize the importance of a self-care action plan and how to develop their own plan.

Skills Pyramid

All of the 30-plus skills in the full Engage with® Older Adults at home Skills Training Program fall into one or more of these five levels of the Skills Pyramid.
Teal Green Engage with Skills Training Pyramid with the words (from base to top): Observe, Communicate, Respond, Preserve, Reflect.

According to “CAREGIVING IN THE U.S. 2020: A FOCUSED LOOK AT FAMILY CAREGIVERS OF ADULTS AGE 50+” from a report by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP:

“Three in 10 caregivers of adults ages 50+ are providing care completely alone, with no help from anyone else (paid or unpaid) … With complexity of care increasing and caregivers taking on more by caring for multiple people with multiple conditions, caregivers’ own health may suffer as a result… the heightened uncertainty and skyrocketing joblessness of the pandemic reinforces that we need to be acutely aware of the implications the findings in this report may have for caregivers of adults ages 50+ who were already being pulled in many directions.”

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A mid adult African-American woman in her 30s at home with her father, a senior man in his 60s. He is sitting at the dining room table and she is serving bowls of salad.
Female home caregiver talking with senior woman, sitting in living room and listening to her carefully.
“It was a great foundation for folks to understand how to work with an aging population, how to better understand behavioral health issues as they work instead of escalating. It gave some good tips to non-clinical people.”
“I learned from the training that sometimes you just have to put yourself in their shoes. And when you do, that makes them happy, which then makes you happy.”
“I like we were in a mixed group of people. We were from all different areas and that we all came together and learned together.”
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The Engage with® older adult at home skills training program uses an innovative, simple to use interactive gamification approach. Take a tour by clicking the section to the left.

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