The Canadian Remote Access for Dementia Learning Experiences (CRADLE) program — a free online dementia care training program spearheaded by the Canadian Institute for Seniors Care at Conestoga College — has been extended thanks to $1.65M in additional funding from the Future Skills Centre.
CRADLE+ shares stories of seniors living with dementia and the care providers who support them. Using interactive features and engaging media, this online course builds upon unregulated care providers’ knowledge and skills in dementia care.
CRADLE explores evidence-informed, person-centred approaches to supporting a person living with dementia as well as their care partners, and is the first fully online, multilingual education opportunity specifically designed for unregulated care providers, like personal support workers, across Canada.
Designed in 2020 with the support of a broad range of stakeholders that include unregulated care providers, employers, care recipients and partners, advocacy groups and educators, the content reflects the real-world complexities of caring for people living with dementia.
“Almost 14,000 individuals have registered for CRADLE to date, and preliminary analyses of voluntary surveys completed by course registrants indicate that it is both an acceptable and effective method of empowering unregulated care providers who support people living with dementia," said Dr. Veronique Boscart, executive director, Canadian Institute for Seniors Caret, and primary investigator of CRADLE.
In addition to supporting the continued offering of CRADLE, the continued investment has allowed for the expansion of the English version to include new content. CRADLE+ has now launched and will advance the project’s aims to empower unregulated care providers through the inclusion of five new modules.
Funding for this Conestoga project, Scaling up the Canadian Remote Access for Dementia Learning Experiences (CRADLE+), follows an initial Future Skills Centre investment of almost $1.2M.
“As Canada’s population ages, we will need more workers to fill the crucial role of caring for the growing number of people living with dementia. The unique content and delivery model of the CRADLE+ program offers targeted, accessible education on dementia care, conveying new knowledge and practices for a positive impact on this workforce and the people they serve," said Pedro Barata, executive director of the Future Skills Centre
CRADLE+ shares stories of seniors living with dementia and the care providers who support them. Using interactive features and engaging media, this online course is geared to build upon unregulated care providers’ knowledge and skills in dementia care by relating to real-life care scenarios.
Modules in CRADLE+ are designed to be short, focused, and accessible so that learners can work through them at their own pace. Free enrolment for the English version of the expanded CRADLE+ course or the original French, Mandarin and Tagalog versions is open for up to 50,000 unregulated care providers. Translated versions of CRADLE+ will be released in 2023.
Visit the CRADLE+ website to enrol or contact SeniorsCare@conestogac.on.ca to learn more.
The Canadian Institute for Seniors Care, led by Dr. Veronique Boscart, the CIHR/Schlegel Industrial Research Chair for Colleges in Seniors Care, focuses on education, workforce development and applied research to develop highly qualified personnel to improve the quality of life and care for Canada’s growing population of seniors.
The Future Skills Centre (FSC) is a pan-Canadian initiative dedicated to helping Canadians gain the skills needed to thrive in a changing labour market. FSC is funded by the government of Canada’s Future Skills Program.