WP7: Training – Year 1

Semi-annual update – September 2016: Training activities, Events and Co-research

The MinD exchanges have been planned in two-week blocks of multiple partners and researchers to facilitate interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral knowledge transfer.

In the first half year, there have been four exchanges to the UK, Luxembourg, Germany, and The Netherlands focused on developing the mindful design and dementia care framework, setting up and starting the data collection, and beginning the design development phase.

The training programme was organised as an integral part of the programme of the staff exchanges, including visits, presentations, training workshops, co-design workshops, and co-research to facilitate the training and up-skilling of researchers.

Site Visits

An important part of the training and knowledge exchange included visits to different partner sites to learn about the national differences in dementia care management, practice and policy:

  • In the UK, visits to Highbury Hospital, St Francis unit at City Hospital, City Community Mental Health Team for Older People, St Francis Day Services and Lings Bar Hospital in Nottingham to learn about the current situation of dementia care and care management through the opinions of caregivers and health care teams. In addition a visit to a NHS demonstration home for care technology in Wolverhampton arranged.
  • At a visit to Brussels as part of the second secondment in Luxembourg, the MinD team attended a lunchtime debate about dementia and disability at the European Parliament in Brussels as well as the meeting of the Alzheimer Europe Public Affairs group.
  • In Germany, the hosts provided a tour of the hospital ‘Alexianer Krankenhaus Hedwigshöhe’ including the dementia ward and the drug rehabilitation ward.
  • During the fourth secondment, a visit to different sites of Zorggroep Sint Maarten and several presentations, offered an overview how dementia care is managed in the Netherlands.

Presentations:

An important part of the initial knowledge transfer was a series of presentations at each secondment of hosting and visiting researchers to each other to get to know and understand better each others knowledge base and experience. This included a total of ca. 25 presentations by project partners, about dementia, dementia care and dementia policy, about the concept and practices of mindfulness as well as mindful design, and about the different design approaches and expertise of partners:

  • Introductions to the concept and practices of mindfulness from clinical and dementia care perspectives as well as to Mindful Design approaching the impact that design decisions have on our everyday life and transfer into design for (dementia) care.
  • Presentations about dementia, dementia care and dementia policy from different partners / countries.
  • Presentations about the concept and practices of mindful design, and about the different design approaches and expertise of partners, including design development and co-designing methodologies concerning design for dementia, as well as presentations on architectural design for dementia care (Prof Dr Gesine Marquardt); user experience design, and professional design strategies.
  • Demonstrations on ICT technologies available to support on mental health care and on dementia.

Training and workshops:

Training in various aspects of data collection and data analysis enabled designers to learn from health care professionals about how to deal with interviewing, focus groups, qualitative analysis in a health care context, and vice versa: healthcare staff have gained insights from designers about the use of visual data collection and visual analysis, brainstorming methods to develop new ideas to facilitate targeted improvements. Training included:

  • Workshops on data collection preparation including the discussion of the interview and focus groups schedules, visual cards, and diary materials; training for the delivery of the focus group in several languages.
  • Discussion and preparation workshops for the materials of the visual cards and visual diaries to support the data collection.
  • Presentations, discussions and workshops on data analysis strategies including thematic analysis/qualitative content analysis; discourse analysis; visual analysis techniques; discussion of software for data analysis and how to provide the training for all four countries.

Co-research:

Visiting researchers worked with, and accompanied experienced researchers and care professional as part of the data collection visits to help with the delivery and note taking during the interviews and focus groups with people with dementia and their carers. These visits importantly help younger researchers, designers and design researchers to gain experience with data collection processes.

Researchers also started to work together on reviewing and writing up research literature and develop research frameworks for WP2, 3, 4 and 5.

External presentations by MinD project partners:

  • Presentation of the MinD project at the Alzheimer Europe Public Affairs group meeting in Brussels.

Attendance and presentation of team researchers at relevant conferences, such as the Design Research Society conference 2016, the Design and Emotion conference 2016, and the Alzheimer Europe Conference 2016, to present project work, get updates on in dementia care policy and design for dementia developments.

 

Semi-annual update – Feb 2017: Training activities, Events and Co-research

In the second half year, there have been six exchanges to the UK, Spain, Germany, and The Netherlands. The secondments continued focussing on developing the mindful design and dementia care framework, continuing the data collection and beginning data analysis as well as beginning the design development phase. The training programme was organised as an integral part of the programme of the staff exchanges, including visits, presentations, training workshops, co-design workshops, and co-research to facilitate the training and up-skilling of researchers.

Site Visits:

An important part of the training and knowledge exchange included visits to different partner sites to learn about the national differences in dementia care management, practice and policy:

  • CETEMMSA sites of smart/functional textiles and printed electronics (ES)
  • Textiles school in Canet del Mar (ES)
  • Hospital Sant Joan de Deu in the north of Barcelona (ES)
  • Zorggroep Sint Marten’s residential centre for the elderly Gerardus Majella (NL)
  • Mental Health Institute in Jubilee Campus (Nottingham, UK)
  • Francis Day Hospital for PwD – meeting the community intervention team (UK)
  • Farming Life Centre, Blackwell, Derbyshire (UK)
  • Day care center of INTRAS (CRPS) in Zamora (ES)
  • Research center (IBIP Lab- Iberian Institute in Psycho-Sciences Lab, ES)
  • Center for occupational therapy and labour oriented programms (Centros Especiales de Empleo- Special Work Center, ES).
  • CRE (Centro de Referencia Estatal de Alzheimer) in Salamanca (ES)

Presentations and training workshops:

An important part of the continued knowledge transfer was a series of presentations and workshop trainings at each secondment of hosting and visiting researchers to each other to get to know and understand better each others knowledge base and experience. This included presentations by project partners, about dementia, dementia care and dementia policy, about state of the art technology in the fields of computer software for dementia care, smart textiles or human-machine interaction. Three particular examples:

  • Workshop on qualitative interviews by Aleksandra Galisnka (UK)
  • Seminar “Improving hospital care of people with dementia“ by Sarah Elizabeth Goldberg (nurse) (UK)
  • UIC Barcelona guest lecture by Enrique Rovira-Beleta Cuyàs, an architect specializing in Accessibility (ES).

Co-research & career development:

Visiting researchers worked with, and accompany experienced researchers and care professional as part of the data collection visits to help with the delivery and note taking during the interviews and focus groups with people with dementia and their carers. Researchers also continued to work together on literature review and writing papers. Visits to external conferences related to the MinD project were also part of the secondments. External presentations and attendances of MinD project partners at other conferences:

  • Trent Dementia Day Conferences (UK)
  • First workshop of the DAWN (Dementia, Arts and wellbeing Network, UK)
  • NHT MindTech HTC Mental Health Symposium 2016 “Realising the Potential of Digital Mental Healthcare”
  • CENTAC (National congress of the assistive technologies, ES): Workshops about mobile devices, Virtual Reality, robotics and education.

Through its training and co-research, the MinD project offers also great opportunities for career development to younger researchers: two of the participating researchers from Germany are also using their work on the MinD project to complete their doctorates, one in design and one in medicine. PhD students from other countries (UK, NL) are also using the project to gain insights into inter-disciplinary working, data collection and evaluation and the co-design process.

Public presentations and external training:

The first MinD symposium was held in London’s Europe House on 7 December 2016 to present the project to the public and invite engagement in the panel discussions and design workshop sessions.