Dr Jane M Mullins
Jane has over 35 years dementia Nursing, Teaching and Research experience. Originally working as a care assistant in a care home prior to her nurse training, she has provided practical and emotional support for people and their loved ones during their dementia diagnosis and beyond in the Memory Clinics of Bath and Cardiff, and has cared with people on acute medical and older adult hospital wards before managing a Care Home. Her research experience includes her role as dementia research nurse specialist in the memory clinics, where she also managed the clinical trials of the now licensed dementia drugs including donepezil, galantamine, rivastigmine and memantine. Her PhD research; A Suitcase of Memories: A Sensory Ethnography of Tourism and Dementia with Older People explored multisensory ways of communicating and connecting with people living with moderate dementia, and was involved in multiple research projects examining care of older adults living with dementia and sensory impairments as a researcher at Swansea University. She has disseminated much of her practitioner and research experience when lecturing and tutoring in Health and Social Care and prides herself in bringing together the expertise of people living with dementia, caregivers and many professionals and researchers in her development of Finding the Light in Dementia training.
Mari Jones
Mari is a Registered Mental Health Nurse with over 30 years’ experience, currently working in the NHS as an Emotional Well-being and Mental Health Practitioner along with her private consultancy services: The Well Nurtured Mind. Her career has taken her overseas where she has extensive leadership and clinical experience in Australia and the UK, as a Consultant Mental Health Nurse, and as a member of a government advisory committee as a content expert. She is a highly skilled trainer and facilitator with extensive experience in training health care staff in clinical care. Mari is passionate about education and supporting staff well-being, demonstrated by her background in workplace coaching, violence prevention and conflict management. Mari has facilitated numerous staff support groups over numerous years. She believes that supporting staff is an integral part of ensuring that our patients and clients receive the best care and optimise health outcomes.
Dr Andy Woodhead
Andy Woodhead is a lecturer, former lawyer, and is living with Dementia. Andy is a Dementia Voice for a number of organisations, helping raise awareness of his experience of living with Lewy Body dementia and works tirelessly to help us challenge the myths and stigma surrounding the different conditions that come under the dementia umbrella. He is also a Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust Trainer, University Lecturer, a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant and a public speaker.
Shonie Ross
Shonie is a Mental Health Nurse and Senior Charge Nurse specialising in the care and medical management of patients living with Young Onset Dementia and their families. She has over 13 years’ experience in all aspects of dementia care in Memory Clinics, Older Adult Mental Health, Specialist Care Home Liaison and Care Home Management. These roles involved nursing people at all stages of their condition(s) and include providing post diagnostic support, future care planning advice and advising on medication management and delirium guidance. She has led on developing and evaluating a carer education courses for unpaid carers supporting loved ones living with young onset dementia and providing stress and distress therapy. When reviewing future care planning delivery services, she identified staff training requirements to support patients and carers. Her extensive skills to support people living with young onset dementia and their carers include using cognitive behavioural therapy, cognitive stimulation therapy, cognitive rehab and anxiety management. She holds an Essentials of Leadership & Management qualification with Enhanced Clinical Leadership modules and has past experience as a Clinical Researcher.
Nigel Hullah
Nigel was diagnosed with early onset Dementia (Posterior Cortical Atrophy). As a result, he has become fully engaged with social justice and human rights of people living with Dementia as he says “the slow drip of being considered a lesser person because of my illness was made obvious to me” He Chairs the 3 Nations Dementia group, sits on the Prime Ministers dementia champions group and advises Welsh Government at a strategic level on Dementia and service delivery. He is also a member of the European dementia working Group.
Prof Charles Musselwhite
Charles is a Professor of Psychology, at Aberystwyth University. His research involves applying social, environmental and health psychology to understanding and improving relationships between the built environment, transportation and health, including road user safety in later life and giving-up driving. This is particularly pertinent for people following a dementia diagnosis. His research is conducted in co production with older adults and people living with dementia, where he supports people who struggle to communicate through creative research methods to ensure their voices are represented. He is Co-Director of the Centre for Ageing and Dementia Research, Transport and Health Integrated Research Network and Centre for Transport and Mobility (CeTrAM), Aberystwyth University.
Teresa “Dory” Davies
Teresa (Dory) was diagnosed with dementia 11 years ago and is a Dementia Pioneer, one of a group of people living with dementia leading the Dementia Enquirers programme. The Dementia Pioneers worked together, with support from experienced academic researchers, to develop a new research methodology which puts people with dementia “in the driving seat” of dementia research: choosing the topic, the research question and the methods.
Dr Mohammed Rauf
Mohammed is a Community Engagement Research Fellow at the Academic Unit for Ageing and Stroke Research, he supports connections with the local populations strengthening relationships with the diverse communities in Bradford. Mohammed completed his PhD in 2023 exploring transitions in coping strategies for South Asian family carers looking after a relative living with advanced dementia. Having worked on addressing and challenging inequalities, over the last 30 years, Mohammed founded Meri Yaadain CiC, a community interest company meaning ‘My Memories’ to raise awareness of dementia amongst the minoritised ethnic communities; gaining him an MBE in 2006 for services to people living with dementia and their carers
Dr Clive Thomas
Clive is a Specialist Practitioner in Mental Health Nursing who has spent his career working in memory assessment and dementia care in both hospital and community settings. He is a former health technology exemplar with the Bevan Commission in which he evaluated the use of an app to help triage for changes in cognition with a view to dementia diagnosis. In 2023 he completed a doctorate in nursing science in which he looked at some of the barriers and enablers to adopting more person-centred ways to diagnose dementia. He is an advocate of general systems thinking to help explain the gaps in service and is keen to help other innovators in health and social care to understand and overcome resistance to change. Clive is currently evaluating the use of a wearable technology to enable vulnerable people to continue living safely in their own homes.
Chris Maddocks
Chris was a police officer for 30 years and was initially diagnosed with vascular dementia at the age of 60 following a number of minor strokes, but in early 2020 the diagnosis was changed to Lewy body dementia following a brain scan. Chris has already spoken about her experience of life with dementia in the media and at conferences and gives an honest and thoughtful account of life with the disease and all the practical and emotional challenges she faces. She believes people diagnosed with dementia need better information and access to support networks, and is also keen to tackle the discrimination which she’s observed in some services.
Professor Colin Beard
Colin is an exciting and innovative speaker on education and the human capacity to learn and has helped us create exciting and engaging study days with his unique expertise in impactful experiential learning. He is the founding partner of The Experiential Learning Design Institute, Hong Kong and holds an Honorary Professorship with The Education University of Hong Kong. Colin has written extensively about learning through experience including Experiential Learning (4th edition) and more recently Experiential Learning Design: Theoretical Foundations and Effective Principles. He has an MA in education and Training, and a PhD in experiential learning. In 1975 he organised and led a six-member, 3-month expedition to the Amazon rainforests. For over 25 years he was a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development CIPD), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Find out more about Colin Beard