So, my name is Ellie Robinson-Carter and I'm the Programme Director for the MSc Dementia at the University of Hull.
Yeah, so I think dementia increasingly so is is becoming something we have to look at and consider and there's just so much, I guess, so much new research coming through all the time and so many more people being diagnosed and the numbers are set to kind of just, you know, multiply as time goes on. So I think now yeah no is a better time really to sort of get a really good understanding of what dementia is and how we can really support the person to have the best life they can living with dementia.
We have the advisory group from University of Hull who have helped us write the course and students will see that they appear most weeks with little videos and things which is fantastic and we also do live sessions with the advice group as well and to give students the chance to meet the advice group you know live and also in person as well if they'd like to. You know we we really move away from that sort of biomedical model and we really think about Kit Woods idea around personhood and dementia and just really looking at you know what's the person trying to communicate to us as practitioners and people researching in this field and how can we really put their experience at the heart of everything. I think giving students the opportunity to maybe reimagine how dementia care might be and what could be possible.
The online the online aspect actually is a real strength because I think especially for people working in the dementia field often, you know, the hours are very long. They might be juggling, you know, families at home, and or maybe even caring for loved ones with dementia. So I think just really allows the flexibility and kind of international perspectives. We get so many incredible international perspectives because people can tune in all over the world. Really, you get such richness of perspectives in terms of dementia and what it is globally and how people are seeing it and what people's belief systems are around it and what what yeah. Where are the gaps? How can we support communities all over the world? And so you really feel that you're really making it a difference with the students using the course to really, influence their practice, which is amazing.
It's amazing watching students how things evolve for them in their practice and research throughout the course and how they bring the practice and research together is really magical because I think often you know, a person might come who's got a lot of experience in practice and they might feel that the research side is quite, you know, new to them and and and I think being able to sort of give that confidence and that voice in the research and it gives can really galvanize things into that into the future for that student, which is brilliant.
And the students often go on to publish works and write books and, you know, find a niche that really needs needs attention in the dementia field because there is there are lots of gaps. So I think, you'll be sure to come out of it feeling very well equipped and with a really strong community of people that are doing it their way too with you which is I think really special.
