Dementia Care NZ
What's new
We're focused on providing the best possible care for our residents.
We have pioneered the Best Friends approach and the Small Homes philosophy of care. These innovations have provided a smaller, more homely style of care for our dementia residents and well-trained staff tailoring their care to the needs, values and beliefs of each resident.
We are constantly improving the way we care for our residents.
Check out our latest news.
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Havening
Havening is sometimes known as ‘first aid for the emotions’ for its ability to very quickly soothe and down-regulate stress neuro-chemistry and promote calm and tranquility.
Havening is a psycho-sensory therapy that helps people identify the root causes of their issues and rewire their response so that they can release issues like stress, trauma and anxiety.
Over the past 18 months I’ve completed Havening training which included a three-day intensive training programme, passing 30 written client case studies, two client case study videos, ethics and a neuro-science exam.
The objective of this training is to explore how Havening techniques might help people living with dementia. Over the next few months we will be considering how simple Havening techniques could help de-escalate situations our residents find distressing or confronting, and create a sense of safety and calm in our homes.
How it works
Havening is based on neuro-science and is all about training the brain to respond differently to particular issues. People’s brains can become stuck in a pattern of high alert around certain circumstances and situations. These situations will trigger extreme or disproportional responses.
Havening techniques can interrupt this pattern by creating healing delta waves. It is gentle, healing, effective and often rapid, and has no negative side effects.
In a session we use Havening Touch to create the change. This technique switches off the brain’s ‘alarm’ button associated with a particular stored trauma, preventing future unhelpful responses. Havening is simple, safe and highly effective, gently down-regulating anxiety and distress and creating a sense of safety … a sense of a safe ‘Haven’.
Donya Nee, Promotions and Public Relations Coordinator and Havening practitioner.
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Strengthening our clinical team
The current shortage of aged care workers is impacting on the sector nation-wide. Caregivers, support staff and especially Registered Nurses simply cannot be found, with competition intense for the few available. This places pressure on existing staff teams who are spread thinly, even more impacted by isolation requirements relating to COVID-19.
We are therefore delighted and privileged to have recently secured the services of two highly skilled and experienced clinicians to join our organisational team in key leadership roles.
Urmee Rahman and Arrah Bagtang have accepted positions as Regional Clinical Managers with Dementia Care NZ. Their role will be to mentor, guide and support the Clinical Managers of our rest homes, and indirectly through them the Registered Nursing and care teams.
Based in the South and North Islands respectively, they will provide leadership through regular on-site visits, zoom sessions and telephone support. They in turn will be supported by our wider DCNZ team, Clinical Adviser, Clinical Support and Quality Team Leader, and specialist DCNZ Mental Health Nurse.
In welcoming Urmee and Arrah to our family, we would like to take this opportunity to introduce them to you.
A dedicated professional with over 8 years of clinical and managerial experience in the health sector, Urmee’s expertise is in aged care nursing, with the past four years in clinical management roles.
Urmee’s approach is strongly people-focused, with a commitment to empowering and supporting our older population to continue to be in charge of living their lives in the way that makes them happy.
Urmee is at home working within a multi-disciplinary team setting to provide the highest quality of care at all times. She thrives on leading and developing successful teams, and implementing change in a dynamic and complex healthcare environment.
Her personal interests include reading, travelling, and exploring and getting to know different cultures and places.
Arrah comes to us with more than seven years experience as Clinical Manager for Aged Care facilities providing rest home, hospital and dementia levels of care, with proven ability to support both residents and staff. Her most recent role has been as Clinical Manager of a 60-bed rest home providing hospital and rest home level care.
Arrah has expertise in Infection Control, Health and Safety, Quality Improvement, facilitating staff education, interRAI assessments and all aspects of clinical team leadership. Her focus is on creating and maintaining warm, caring and effective relationships with residents, their families and the staff team to provide truly excellent holistic care.
Above all, Arrah’s passion for older persons’ care, and especially dementia, shine through the work she has chosen to do.
This dual appointment broadens and strengthens the clinical expertise of our team, making an additional level of knowledge, skills and experience readily accessible to staff, residents and families. The added benefits in terms of care will be significant, with a true passion for dementia and aged care characterising each member of our outstanding clinical team.