My name is Karen and I’m a newly trained facilitator with Empowered Conversations.  I attended two Empowered Conversations courses over a couple of years to help support me with my mum.  My mum has Parkinson’s and Dementia with Lewy Body disease.  I quickly saw just how beneficial the course was and how it could help carers and their families, in such a friendly and reflective space.

I joined the Empowered Conversations team 6 months ago and have been training and supporting the delivery of courses since then.  During this time, I have been absolutely blown away by the fantastic attitude of the carers attending our courses. They have positively enabled themselves and each other throughout the sessions. On my most recent course, Carers have arrived at Zoom with an open mind, eager to soak up new approaches, further their understanding around dementia and then share this valuable information with family members.  They have really started to stand in the shoes of those they care for in group discussions and when practicing new skills or tools.

Towards the end of this Course, Carers shared how they each gained immensely from Empowered Conversations – feeling they had really enjoyed sharing with others in a similar situation and that they had been given the confidence to reconnect fully with their loved ones.  We use an exercise in week 1 which empowers Carers to share how they feel when talking to a loved one with dementia, this same exercise is repeated on the last session of the course.  Some of their initial feelings of ‘helplessness, being alone, emotional, confused and frustrated’ had changed to have ‘a better understanding, that they could adapt to change, they were better informed, enlightened, curious and looking forward to the future’.  The change was incredible and left me feeling – WOW, Just WOW!