Our mission

Education

Training for senior care professionals, businesses, community groups, and care partners to create a culture of kindness and compassion.

Enrichment

Helping people impacted by dementia to live well through connections, programs, coaching, and support groups.

Hope

Providing answers and help for now while joining efforts to improve outcomes in the future.

Our Approach: Person-directed, family-driven care

We listen to the voices of the experts (people living with dementia).  These people, who have served in leadership capacities for many years, continue to advise us in our work, sharing how they feel when they are participating in life enrichment programming, making insightful recommendations for us to follow.

We help staff in businesses, health care, and senior care learn dementia-friendly communication strategies.  We offer education and support for family care partners of loved ones living with dementia.    Because Cyndy Luzinski, our executive director, and the only licensed SPECAL® Practitioner  in North America (as credentialed by the Contented Dementia Trust in England)  provides much of our education, we often teach participants about the SPECAL Method to sustain lifelong well-being for people with dementia.  This starts with Three Golden Rules of “Contented Dementia,” understood through the framework of a simple and highly effective way of explaining how it feels to experience dementia, using the SPECAL Photograph Album. (The Contented Dementia Trust, Burford, England).  We are conducting evidence-based research with Colorado State University on the impact of using SPECAL.  Our preliminary findings are consistent with the latest UK research from King’s College London.  

Our education starts with helping family care partners learn 3 Golden Rules:

The experts are the people living with dementia. The SPECAL approach invites us to listen to them and learn from them.  “The SPECAL Photograph Album leads to a set of guiding principles and a practical, positive approach to the management of dementia – the SPECAL method.    Without understanding of the photograph album analogy, the 3 Golden Rules may be misunderstood as limiting choice when in reality, they do the exact opposite.

The SPECAL method can be learned and used by anyone who cares for a person with dementia.”

This approach to dementia care and advocacy is what enables us to become recognized as the local “in the meantime” organization, helping people discover that “in the meantime,” until cures for the various causes of dementia are found, we can make life changing differences NOW for people striving to live well with dementia.  The SPECAL practitioner consultations and workshops provide families a framework and specific tools (for every rule there’s a tool) techniques, mantras, and ongoing assistance to develop and maintain a personalized profile of key ingredients needed to ensure their loved ones are able to live with lifelong well-being.

New SPECAL coaches and practitioners are in training here in Northern Colorado, so we expect to be able to keep up with the requests for services in the months and years ahead as word about this simple approach to dementia care is spread.

Our Story

Originally Dementia-Friendly Communities of Northern Colorado®, we started as a volunteer initiative in November 2015 as a result of the incredible community support we received with the B Sharp Arts Engagement® program, a collaborative project enabling couples living with dementia to attend the symphony and participate in a research study. When the need for sustaining the volunteer initiative became apparent, we formed a 501c3 non-profit organization in January 2017. Dementia Together remains a local, grassroots, “in the meantime” nonprofit organization today. We are supported by private donations, corporate partnerships, grants, and a lot of collaboration and passion.

We are proudly affiliated with the Purple Angel Ambassadors, an international dementia-friendly awareness campaign.  We enthusiastically share the SPECAL® method as a framework to simply understand how to effectively manage the condition of dementia to produce lifelong well-being.  We collaborate locally with the Alzheimer’s Association, area agencies on aging, and many Northern Colorado senior care organizations. We are actively engaged with the North American Dementia Action Alliance. In a June, 2019 Dementia Action Alliance White Paper Response to The National Academies of Sciences, we were cited in the case study which stated: “one nonprofit organization, [Dementia Together], is leading the way in changing the predominant culture surrounding people living with dementia and their potential to ‘live well.’” Additionally, we participate in the World Dementia Council survey to collect global evidence base for the delivery of meaningful Dementia Friendly Initiatives (DFIs). We contribute resources and expertise to the Dementia Map and Memory Cafe Directory websites.  More importantly, we create and share joy with our friends who are striving to live well with dementia.

Board of Directors

Meet the Team

Andrea Scandrett is our Program Manager, a Certified Dementia Practitioner®, and SPECAL® Coach. She has a Master’s in Gerontology and has been with us since we started out as a volunteer initiative.

Meghan Wall is our Program Coordinator,  a SPECAL® Coach, and Certified Dementia Practitioner®. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in Health & Exercise Science and a Minor in Gerontology.

Robin Westcott is our Business Manager. She is a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant and Certified Dementia Practitioner® whose mother lived with dementia.

Claire Richardson is our Outreach and Resource Developoment Manager. She has a passion for our aging community and listening to stories, Claire created Preserving with Purpose to ensure that our history, stories and memories can be preserved in creative ways for our future generations. Building connection one story at a time.

Esther Gowin is our Social Media Coordinator. She is passionate about capturing and sharing Dementia Together’s impactful work and loves using social media platforms to create connections throughout our community.

Amy Threewitt is our Enrichment Manager. She has a background in Non-Profit and Volunteer Management, and has a passion for serving others and building community.

Strategic Partners

Chris Imsland of Imsland Consulting: An experienced consultant with a demonstrated history of working in the non profit industry. Chris is skilled in providing organizations with grant and proposal writing, fundraising strategy, organizational management, and business development services.  Because of our thoughtful strategy, engaged board of directors, and community energy around our work, Chris remarked at a recent board retreat, “Dementia Together is the best new nonprofit I’ve seen.”

Code Geek, who designed and maintains our website with updates and solutions that we don’t have expertise or time to manage…And they do it without complaining (to us)!

Twelve11Films, is a videography and photography company that specializes in telling your story.

Periscope Theory, an organizational development consulting business that provides strategic, relationship focused services which help us maintain best practice.

Community Advisory Board

Phil Leathery, expert living with dementia and Joan Leathery, care partner

Carla Jeffrey, expert living with dementia and Lee Jeffrey, care partner

Phil Thompson, expert living with dementia and Cathy Thompson, care partner

Chuck Hanson, expert living with dementia and Sheryl Hanson, care partner