18 July, 2024 4 min read
How many conferences have speakers in the lineup with backgrounds as diverse as an assistant police commissioner, a retired science teacher and a gerontologist?
Assistant Commissioner with the South Australian Police, Scott Duval, Lived Experience Associate Consultant with Dementia Support Australia, Bill Yeates, and Chief Operating Officer, Community Home Australia, Nicole Smith, come from different parts of Australia and have travelled very different paths in life.
A common passion for improving the lives of people living with dementia is what unites these #IDC2024 panellists, and they’ll be sharing their expertise and experience about three different subjects in a program packed with interesting conversations.
Panel: Future fit - a household model of residential care for tomorrow
With qualifications in nursing and then gerontology, ACT-based Nicole Smith worked in the residential aged care sector before launching first a community dementia café then a not-for-profit cottage-style residential aged care home called Community Home Australia, of which she is the chief operating officer.
Nicole is on the record as saying that lack of workforce training can lead to poor quality of life for people living with dementia in residential care, but the resulting circumstances are often instead attributed to the person’s dementia behaviours.
She’ll bring her coalface experiences and informed opinions to the discussion on new directions in residential care on Day 2, where she’ll be joined by facilitator Angela Raguz (General Manager, The Dementia Centre and Residential Care, HammondCare), Martin Rix (Chief Executive of Belong, UK), and a representative of the Department of Health and Aged Care.
They’ll look particularly at what the implications are for people living with dementia if the small household model is pushed to the extreme.
Panel: Striving to shatter the stereotype – a conversation about media representation
Returning to IDC after first appearing in 2022, Bill Yeates is these days, among other things, a Lived Experience Associate Consultant, Dementia Support Australia.
But for over 35 years he was a physics and chemistry teacher and school administrator. Then, at the age of 59, he was diagnosed with Younger Onset Alzheimer's Disease and his world was turned upside down.
Since then, Bill has nurtured a keen interest managing his diagnosis on a daily basis, creating his own website to show others how it is possible to still lead a better life. In the last few years, Bill has started to share his experiences as a way of raising awareness about dementia, focussing mainly on post-diagnostic care and support via a holistic approach to life.
He’ll speak in the ‘Lived Experience’ concurrent session (Stream A on Day 2), and join Scottish author and theologian Prof John Swinton on Day 1 to discuss media representations of people with dementia, both good and bad.
Panel: First on scene - first responder viewpoints
Representing the SA Police, Assistant Commissioner Scott Duval will bring an enormously broad and deep understanding of the complications of community policing to a Day 1 panel examining how emergency services and the dementia sector can support each other.
Scott joined South Australia Police in 1982 and has specialist crime experience in both metropolitan and country areas. He rose through the ranks, working in teams as diverse as the Pedophile Task Force, Licensing Enforcement Branch, Drug Investigation Branch, Media and Marketing Section, Executive Support Section and Regional Operations Service.
As Assistant Commissioner, he’s held the portfolios of Security and Emergency Management Service, Crime Service, Operations Support Service and since September 2020 has the portfolio for policing of the metropolitan area of Adelaide through Metropolitan Operations Service.
In what is bound to be a timely and provocative conversation, Scott will sit down to talk with Lindsay Bent (Clinical Lead, Ambulance Victoria), Dr Guruprasad Nagaraj (Director of Emergency, Sydney Adventist Hospital), Julane Bowen (Dementia and Mental Health Law Advocate) and facilitator Marie Alford (Head of Dementia Support Australia).
Don't miss the conversation!
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