New centres to boost health professionals’ dementia skills
 More than 7,500 health professionals around Australia will benefit from specialised tertiary dementia training and scholarships over the next three years under an $8.36 million project announced on 26 May.
PDF printable version of New centres to boost health professionals’ dementia skills (PDF 18 KB)
SS52/06
25 May 2006
More than 7,500 health professionals around Australia will benefit from specialised tertiary dementia training and scholarships over the next three years under an $8.36 million project announced today by the Minister for Ageing, Senator Santo Santoro.
"The Dementia Training Study Centres which the Government is setting up mean that a broad range of health professionals will be able to access dementia training and scholarships, with students being able to do work placements involving dementia care," Senator Santoro said.
"This initiative comes on top of the dementia-specific vocational training for 17,000 aged care workers which I announced earlier this month, and underlines the Government’s commitment to tackling this debilitating condition.
"By increasing the skills and knowledge of tertiary-trained health professionals we will be able to improve the lives of many of the estimated 200,000 Australians who have some form of dementia," Senator Santoro said.
The Dementia Training Study Centres for Health Professionals Project is designed to develop the dementia skills of existing and future health care professionals. Each lead organisation, in partnership with other tertiary institutions, health-care and service-industry providers, will establish a Dementia Training Study Centre covering one or more states or territories.
The project will develop and promote undergraduate and postgraduate dementia curricula and training resources, and offer a number of dementia-specific scholarships. Nurses, medical students, medical specialists, social workers, diversional therapists and psychologists are among the professionals who will benefit from the program.
"The training and support will help a broad range of professionals to improve the care they provide to people with dementia, either in community or residential settings," Senator Santoro said. "At least 270 health care professionals will receive scholarships to help improve their dementia care skills."
Dementia was made an Australian Government Health Priority in 2005, the year in which the Budget committed $320.6 million over five years for a variety of dementia initiatives.
The service providers in the Dementia Training Study Centres for Health Professionals Project are listed on the attached sheet.
Media contact: Malcolm Cole - 0408 612 603
Dementia training study centres for health professionals
State/Territory | Partners |
| NSW, Queensland, ACT | University of Wollongong, with Queensland University of Technology; Griffith University; Centre for Research and Education in Ageing, University of Sydney; Hammond Care Group; RSL Care (Queensland); Uniting Care: Ageing (NSW and ACT); and Blue Care (Uniting Care Queensland). |
| Victoria, Tasmania | La Trobe University (ACEBAC), with Monash School of Rural Health; the National Ageing Research Institute; the University of Tasmania; Alzheimer's Australia (Victoria and Tasmania) and the Collaborative Health Education Research Centre at Bendigo Health. |
| South Australia, Northern Territory | Alzheimer's Australia SA, with Aged and Community Services SA and NT; Charles Darwin University Australia; Flinders Medical Centre; Flinders University and the South Australian Government. |
| Western Australia | Curtin University of Western Australia with the Centre for Research into Aged Care Services, University of Western Australia; Edith Cowan University; Alzheimer's Association WA; Perth Home Care Services; Churches of Christ Home and Community Services Inc; Brightwater Group; Silver Chain; Anglican Homes Inc; Hall and Prior Care Organisation; Hollywood Private Hospital and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. |
 To view PDF (Portable Document Format) documents, you will need to have a PDF reader installed on your computer. The Adobe Acrobat Reader is available free of charge from Adobe's website.
|
|
