For the first time in its history, the WA DTSC has become part of the School of Pharmacy under the Faculty of Health Sciences. Working as part of the School of Pharmacy opens up possibilities for new partnerships and ideas.
The WA DTSC is closely aligned to the Dementia Collaborative Research Centre, Consumers & Carers, (DCRC CC). This ensures a commitment to evidence-based education and knowledge transformation.
At the WA DTSC we provide contemporary evidence-based dementia education for health professionals and university students over four levels of learning – Undergraduate, Professional Practice, Specialist Practice, and Advanced Professional Practice.
We utilise inter-professional collaboration that combines significant tertiary education capacity and experience, industry knowledge, service delivery environments, practical experience, and health professional representation to provide relevant opportunities for development in the current and future health professional’s workforce.
The National Priority Areas for the WA DTSC are:
- Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Workforce in dementia care. In 2012 the Western Australian DTSC partnered with the DCRC-CC and Alzheimer’s Australia WA to undertake the project ‘Understanding barriers and incentives to relationship-centred dementia care in an increasingly multicultural workforce’. This project explored the experiences, barriers and incentives for the increasing population of multicultural workers in dementia care. From this project a set for guiding principles was developed, aimed at organizational leaders in residential aged care facilities for the establishment of a culturally connected workforce. In this current funding round, the principles will be validated and an audit tool developed to inform changes to policies and procedures which foster a culturally competent workforce.
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: To increase awareness and education of culturally appropriate dementia care for the diverse Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.
- Medication Management for people with dementia. This is a new National Priority Area which marries well with the alignment with the School of Pharmacy. This project is in the embryonic phase, but the aim is to perform a scoping exercise funded jointly by the DCRC-CC and the Western Australian DTSC which looks at the barriers and incentives to optimal medication management in dementia care. A framework for medication management accompanied by training modules is proposed as the ultimate deliverable for this new project.
