Dignity Quotient provides education and workshops on empathy experience and dementia-related training. Topics include Leslie Pedtke’s famed Through the Looking Glass empathy training program, plus other dementia-related topics including dining, intimacy, Life Story, bathing, and activities.
Author Trainings
Training Programs
Montessori Dementia Care Training and Certification
Don’t allow your community to be anything less than extraordinary! It’s time for everyone to live life to its fullest. HPP author Jennifer Brush’s development company provides personalized training and coaching in person-centered care and Montessori for Dementia that enables you to create a supportive memory care environment where everyone thrives.
Products by Jennifer Brush
The Validation Training Institute
The Validation method motivates older adults with cognitive decline to communicate more, relieve stress, and enhance dignity and happiness in their final stage of life. Validation Training Institute provides education, quality standards, and easy pathways for learning this evidence-based method, built around the Validation approach featured in HPP’s Validation titles.
Validation Products
Expert Speakers and Consulting
Eilon Caspi
Dementia Behavior Consulting, LLC
Dementia Behavior Consulting, LLC offers an array of services related to prevention of various forms of behavioral expressions (such as those commonly labeled “aggressive”) and improvement of psychological well-being of people living with dementia in the community and long-term care homes.
Eilon Caspi, Ph.D., is a gerontologist and dementia behavior specialist. He is the founder and director of Dementia Behavior Consulting LLC and a founding member, advisor, and board member of Elder Voice Family Advocates. He currently works as an assistant research professor at the Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy, University of Connecticut. He serves as a board member of the Long Term Care Community Coalition (NYC).
Over the past 13 years, he developed and implemented a comprehensive program for the prevention of the prevalent and harmful phenomenon of resident-to-resident incidents in long-term care homes. He regularly presents on the phenomenon at local, state, national, and international professional and scientific forums, nursing homes, long-term care trade associations, the Alzheimer’s Association (U.S. and Canada), the Veterans Administration, the Office of Ombudsman for long-term care, state survey agencies, and coroner offices. He co-directed the first documentary film entitled Fighting for Dignity on injurious and fatal resident-to-resident incidents in dementia (Terra Nova Films). He frequently gives interviews about this phenomenon with media organizations such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Star Tribune, CBC News Canada, The Canadian Press, and Stuff New Zealand. In recent years, he dedicated his research and advocacy to the prevention of various forms of elder mistreatment such as neglect of healthcare, abuse, financial exploitation, and theft of opioid pain medications in assisted living residences and nursing homes. His passion is in bridging between academia/research and care practice/policy.
Products by Eilon Caspi
Leslie Pedtke
Dignity Quotient
Leslie Pedtke, L.N.H.A., is an award-winning thought leader and national speaker in the areas of long-term care with a focus on culture change, workforce development and teaching empathy. Ms. Pedtke is leading the Dignity Quotient™ movement, which helps long-term care organizations deliver higher quality and more profitable service through person-directed care partnerships.
For decades, Leslie has been on the front lines of the management and ownership of skilled nursing and assisted living/memory care communities. Her book, What Living as a Resident Can Teach Long-Term Care Staff: The Power of Empathy to Transform Care, was released by Health Professions Press to critical acclaim in October 2017 and is standard reading for long-term care professionals, students and families.
Ms. Pedtke brings a wealth of personal experience to her programs. She was the Chief Administrator of Aviston Countryside Manor from 1994-2017.
For the past decade, Leslie has served on the board of the Illinois Pioneer Coalition holding positions as the President, Vice-President and education coordinator. She was also selected as the Illinois Pioneer Coalition’s Culture Change Champion of the Year. Leslie was named to HCCI’s Heroes in Long Term Care.
Products by Leslie Pedtke
Cathie Brady, Barbara Frank
B&F Consulting
B&F Consulting works with national, state, and regional learning collaboratives, providing on-site education and consultation.
They provide:
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Customized services to help leaders build systems to support high involvement quality improvement, stabilize and engage staff, and initiate or re-energize culture change.
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Help taking on small and large changes using a “learn by doing” method. Leaders learn a process for change, and how to put in systems to involve staff. Leaders, supervisors, and staff strengthen critical thinking and problem solving skills that can be applied to future efforts.
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Consultation, facilitation, education, and strategic planning services to individual care providers, state associations, culture change coalitions, state survey agencies, quality improvement organizations, ombudsman and other advocacy organizations, and workforce intermediaries.
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Support through regional, company-wide, and statewide collaboratives toward common goals to improve workforce stability, provide individualized quality care, and improve clinical outcomes. In these learning collaboratives, teams come together periodically for learning sessions, and then engage in action periods where they implement what they have learned.
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Training for surveyors on the application of culture change to regulatory practice, providing a unique historical perspective on the intent of OBRA ’87, and the process for change from institutional to individualized care.
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Assistance to ombudsman programs and other consumer advocates to engage in partnerships to achieve the promise of OBRA ‘87, and the related goals of resident-centered care.
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Educational programs in disaster preparedness, built on our experiences supporting nursing homes that safely sheltered thousands of residents during Hurricane Katrina, and collaboration with California’s Association of Health Facilities Disaster Preparedness program.
Cathie Brady, M.S., has more than thirty years’ experience providing services and advocating for the elderly in a variety of settings, including serving as Executive Director of the Department of Aging Services for the city of Bristol, Connecticut, and for 10 years as the Regional LTC Ombudsman for Eastern Connecticut. Cathie has an M.S. in Organizational Management from Eastern Connecticut State University. She is co-founder (with her co-author Barbara Frank) of B&F Consulting, where she co-produced a Webcast for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services on “The How of Change: ‘What a difference management makes!’” Cathie directed the Connecticut Career Ladder and Culture Change Initiative. For 3 years, she worked with the New Orleans Nursing Home Staffing Project, which helped nursing homes recover from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She co-produced a film with Louisiana Public Broadcasting called The Big Uneasy: Katrina’s Unsung Heroes. Cathie is a frequent speaker at state and national conferences and specializes in leadership development at all levels of an organization to assist nursing homes interested in being better places to live and work.
Barbara Frank, M.P.A., has devoted her career to national, state, and local long-term care improvement work. For 16 years she directed policy and program work for National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform in Washington, DC. There, in 1985, she directed a landmark study, A Consumer Perspective on Quality Care: The Residents’ Point of View. At NCCNHR, she helped establish the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program and the national ombudsman support center. Frank facilitated the Campaign for Quality Care, a coalition of provider, practitioner, labor, government and consumer organizations to enact the Institute of Medicine’s report on nursing home care into OBRA ’87. As Connecticut’s State Long Term Care Ombudsman, she brought providers, health professionals, and state agencies together to rethink restraint use, institute consistent assignment, and individualize care. Frank facilitated the initial gathering of the Pioneer Network and served on its board. Barbara co-authored “Nursing Homes: Getting Good Care There” and “Health Care Workforce Issues in Massachusetts.” She has an MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Get in contact with B&F Consulting
David Farrell
Private Consultant
David Farrell, M.S.W., L.N.H.A., is a licensed nursing home administrator who has spent over 30 years in the healthcare profession. He started as a certified nursing assistant in order to earn extra money while attending college. That experience inspired him to pursue a Master’s degree in Social Work with a concentration in gerontology and administration from Boston College. Throughout his career in various leadership positions, David has advocated for patient-centered care using quality improvement practices. A nationally recognized leader in the field, he has traveled the country to deliver inspiring presentations to health care executives at conferences and training events. Currently, David is the Vice President of Subacute Services at Telecare Corporation located in Alameda, California.