DTA currently uses different terms for behaviour. We will be progressively moving to the term Changed Behaviour in all our content.

Rural and remote Australia

Providing dementia education and training across Australia

Dementia Training Australia (DTA) delivers dementia courses, resources and services to all parts of Australia, and is committed to rural and remote Australia.

DTA is funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Health to provide training to health and aged care staff and managers on the care of people living with dementia.

Our online dementia courses, workshops and resources are accessed by many thousands of people each year. Our vocational level training course Dementia Essentials is delivered to 6,500 people each year and we have had more than 15,000 online course completions.

Environments consultancy

Our award-winning Environments Consultancy has a team of specialists based in 5 Australian states, who are are available and prioritise visits to rural and remote locations across Australia.

We can discuss how to use your existing environment more effectively, help you plan a new facility or refurbish your existing one.

This service may help your organisation meet the Aged Care Quality Standards: Standard 1, Standard 5

Our commitment to rural and regional Australia

DTA’s Road trip across Australia in 2018

DTA Workshop held
in Kingston, SA

To ensure that our courses and resources are suited to the needs of health and aged care staff working in rural and remote parts of Australia, DTA directors and staff embarked on a series of road trips in 2018.

Identify gaps and areas of need

Before each trip, we invited aged and health care facilities in the towns we were visiting to a half-day meeting which includes a workshop on an area of topical interest (for example medication management, responsive behaviours, environmental design) followed by a discussion on DTA courses and resources with the aim of identifying gaps, and areas of need that are specific to services operating at a distance from the support available in metropolitan areas.

Places we visited

This outreach into rural and remote parts of Australia is helping DTA develop new courses or resources that go beyond the needs of metropolitan services, ensuring that we provide a truly national service.

26-Jun	NSW	Narrabri
27-Jun	NSW	Moree
28-Jun	QLD	Goondiwindi
6-Jul	VIC	Mildura
11-Jul	TAS	Launceston
12-Jul	TAS	Burnie
13-Jul	TAS	Devonport
19-Jul	VIC	Swan Hill
20-Jul	VIC	Horsham
24-Jul	VIC	Leongatha
24-Jul	NT	Alice Springs
25-Jul	NT	Darwin

25-Jul	VIC	Bairnsdale
26-Jul	VIC	Traralgon
27-Jul	VIC	Warragul
14-Aug	NSW	Narrandera
15-Aug	NSW	Griffith
16-Aug	NSW	Deniliquin
16-Aug	VIC	Ararat
21-Aug	SA	Mount Gambier
22-Aug	SA	Bordertown
23-Aug	SA	Murray Bridge
28-Aug	SA	Port Lincoln
29-Aug	SA	Whyalla

30-Aug	SA	Port Pirie
3-Sep	WA	Kalgoorlie
5-Sep	WA	Esperance
10-Sep	WA	Bunbury
11-Sep	WA	Margaret River
13-Sep	WA	Albany
9-Oct	QLD	Charleville
10-Oct	QLD	Roma
11-Oct	QLD	Chinchilla
12-Oct	QLD	Dalby

This face-to-face investigation was part of a project that extended to the most remote services in Australia

These services have been identified from Health Department records, and we contacted them with an invitation to complete a training needs analysis questionnaire, telling us about their special circumstances and needs.

In exchange for this information, the remote services were provided with a subscription to the bi-monthly publication Australian Journal of Dementia Care (AJDC) which is accompanied with a ‘Journal Club’ booklet, designed to guide a discussion of four AJDC articles. The idea being that the AJDC publication and booklet were used to support fortnightly meetings at which the staff can discuss one of the recent developments in the care of people with dementia described in the current issue of the AJDC.

Picture of the AJDC
Journal Club Booklet