HEART TANK: Dementia Care Support

Saturday, November 5, 2022

10AM to Noon - Group Gathering

Noon to 7PM - Open House for

Connections and Conversations: This is for those of you who can't make the 10AM gathering.

We would love to meet you and share some time together.  Come anytime during these hours.

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If you are a person who works in the field of dementia and memory care, cares for someone living with dementia or supports a dementia caregiver we want to hear from you. 

We are calling this gathering a HEART  TANK, like a THINK TANK. But here we will listen to our own heartfelt experience to gather understanding.

We will explore being present with ourselves and one another, in hopes of shoring each other up to do the rugged and sacred work of dementia care and advocacy.

We will attempt to uncover what gets in the way of creating a community, a neighborhood, a city, a world where people living with dementia and those who care for them are seen, valued and welcomed.

We will nurture a vision where caregivers receive the support they need to do the compassionate and creative work of dementia care partnering. A vision that challenges assumptions and attitudes that often have left people living with dementia and those who care for them isolated and invisible.

We will make space for the frustration, loss and grief that accompany the dementia journey as well as the love, intimacy, wonder and hope that nourish and mature our spirits along the way.

We will explore the field of dementia care with courage—a word rooted in the latin “cor,” or heart.

Our questions include:

• What are the gifts you’ve received from your caregiving journey?
• What keeps you going?
• What keeps us from engaging with people living with dementia?
• How can we build relationships between families and professional caregivers?
• How can we shift care partnership from a depleting and isolating experience to an enriching, creative and soulful practice?
• Can we provide all care partners with the support, independence and growth opportunities they need to flourish?
• What would a community of true caring look like?

Ramona is a new initiative to help improve dementia care. We aim to bring new perspectives, new questions and new practices to the field. We believe caregivers, elders and people living with dementia benefit from a more holistic approach.

Alongside the changes and loss that accompany dementia, we believe there is the potential for growth. We recognize the power of the arts as generative and healing practices, and the natural world as a spiritual, sustaining resource.

We bring experience and expertise from the field of the arts, workplace culture, somatics, education and creative aging.

YOUR HOSTS FOR THIS FREE EVENT are Temple Crocker, Ed Frauenheim and Rowena Richie.

We call ourselves Ramona.

Temple is an interdisciplinary artist, somatic and arts educator who lives in Winston-Salem. She is a certified facilitator of Timeslips: a collective storytelling method created for people living with dementia.

Rowena is co-founder of FOR YOU, a performance group based in San Francisco, Lead Artist on FOR YOU’s, Artists and Elders project, a Global Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health and a certified senior fitness instructor.

Ed is former director of research and content at consulting firm Great Place to Work, co-author of four books and co-author of several Fortune stories about the Best Workplaces in Aging Services.

Together we are a collaborative, committed to building community so we can experience the relief and joy of doing things together.

ALL ARE WELCOME!  WE HOPE TO SEE YOU!

Have questions?  Contact Temple Crocker at templecrocker@gmail.com  or  443-540-3975.

If you are a professional dementia caregiver we have stipends available to cover the cost of your time.

Again, please inquire with Temple.

*Heart Tank Illustration by Annie Kunjappy Key