Get in touch
Empowered Conversations
Age UK Salford,
108 Church Street,
Eccles
M30 0LH
OFFICE HOURS
Monday – Friday | 9:00 – 5:00 |
Our Team

• Accredited senior practitioner coach and professional member of the EMCC.
• NLP diploma.
• Trustee and Director of Made in Haslingden (A small charity that provide the community with meaningful engagement, supporting those who may feel lonely, isolated, and living with dementia).
• ILM in leadership and management.
• Project management experience.
I’ve worked in a specialized dementia team for many years and also have a family member living with dementia. My passion for creative person-centered wellbeing has grown and this can be seen within my work as mindfulness, poetry, affirmations and the use of many various best practice models and theories.
I’ve worked on the Empowered Carers project since 2019 and seen the positive impact it has had on so many carers and their families. It is an honor and delight to work within the Empowered team. A diverse, highly skilled, creative and compassionate team.

• Member of INTERDEM pan-European network of researchers collaborating in research on and dissemination of Psychosocial Interventions in Dementia
• Member of the Greater Manchester, Lancashire and South Cumbria Clinical Senate
• Trustee of charity the Transform Research Alliance
• Author of more than 30 published articles and book chapters

I am passionate about investing my energy, time and enthusiasm in to the social enterprise sector and I’m proud to work and live in Salford. For the past 5 years I have directed my career towards working more and more with people living with dementia and those affected by dementia.
Director – Empower You – supporting disabled people and those around them to lead more active lives.

I now work as a Music Therapist with Aspire at the Humphrey Booth Resource Centre in Swinton, Salford, with carers and people living with dementia. I am supported by a grant from Booth Charities.
I facilitate courses for Empowered Conversations and run Come and Sing weekly sessions. I am currently developing a related, music and movement centred course – Moving Beyond Words with Barbara and Clare. Qualities of music- pulse, dynamics and phrasing- are also inherent qualities of spoken language. ‘Playing’ with these qualities within music making can illuminate our understanding of other forms of communication, both verbal and non-verbal.
I want to help carers and people living with dementia enhance their communication with each other and sustain their relationships; key factors in improving their quality of life.

I first discovered the Empowered Conversations course when I took part as a participant in 2017 to support my professional role and also my communication with my own mum who was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2015. I immediately understood and experienced at a practical personal level the value of the course. I was delighted to be invited to complete training in order to join the team and deliver the course to others across Greater Manchester.

Barbara Lewis has successfully pursued a number of careers – fashion buyer, Further Education teacher and music teacher – all of which have good communication at their heart. However, she says the two most important jobs she has had are bringing up her two, now grown up, children and caring for her mother after she developed dementia.
She is currently an entrepreneur developing the range of clothing she designed for her mother to maintain her dignity.
She came across Empowered Conversations when she was introduced to Emma by a colleague. She related to the philosophy of the Empowered Conversations communications course as it was very much akin to the approach she had taken during her own caring experiences.
She was absolutely delighted to be approached to train to facilitate the course. She wants to help carers and people living with dementia maintain their relationships through good communication, understanding and empathy.
As a fellow musician she is also helping Margaret Garner develop the music-centred course, as she used music in many ways with her own mother and is very much convinced that music has a great role to play in communication.

I am a qualified counsellor and Hypnopsychotherapist. I have worked in a range of settings providing therapeutic interventions in areas such as stress management, weight management and bereavement. I’ve been a team leader for Dementia advisors in Oldham for the last 5 years, providing activities within the community for people living with Dementia and their carers. I was also the co-ordinator of Oldham Dementia Action Alliance. I have lived in Salford all of my life and am very proud to be part of the team and to now both live and work in my home town.

I attended the Empowered Conversations course which I found incredibly helpful in both finding better ways to communicate but also in meeting other people in similar situations. I was then really excited to become part of the team, training to become a facilitator whilst proving support to the team delivering the courses. I feel very passionate about Empowered Conversations and the work they do to help support those caring for family living with dementia. The course gave me the opportunity to improve communications with my mum, making our time together much easier and creating a more positive relationship between us. I believe very strongly in the work we do, the help and support we provide and I feel honoured to be part of such a vibrant, passionate and dedicated team and look forward to supporting future courses.

My mother-in Law Nancy was diagnosed with both vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s. To say I was struggling would be an understatement but in 2016, along with my wife we attended an Empowered conversations course. While not giving me all the answers, it did enable us to improve our communications and ultimately the whole relationship. It is now a total privilege to work within Empowered Conversation as a course facilitator. I am honoured to be part of an amazing team who are 100% committed to supporting both family carers and people living with dementia improve their relationships.

I love the holistic approach of Empowered for the individual, with masses of different support available. Also, and importantly, over the last three to four years, I have been caring for a close family member living with Dementia and have a personal passion around exploring and supporting individuals and families affected by these difficult challenges, to find more peace and connection together.

It made such a huge difference being with others in a similar situation. I knew I needed to try and share what I had learned with others affected by dementia. I feel proud to be doing that today as an Empowered Conversations facilitator.

As a Dementia Adviser, I visited and supported many people living with dementia and their Family Carers within their own homes and in care homes. I was involved with setting up and running Dementia Cafes and Support Groups. I was also an internal trainer bringing a practitioner’s perspective through writing and delivering many courses, including Adaptive Interaction, Progression of Dementia and Complex Needs.

I have experience of supporting people in their journey to making positive changes in their own life. I hope to bring support to the research involved within the Empowered team.

I am committed to developing helpful interventions that improve services and better meet peoples’ needs. I am excited by the opportunity to use my skills to develop and evaluate the Empowered Conversations approach to meet the needs of those living with dementia and their carers.

I got in touch with Empowered Conversations through my postgraduate studies, and ultimately joined the team. It is an absolute privilege to work with Empowered Conversations in supporting carers and people living with a dementia in their communication.