I will always treasure an account from a staff member who had arrived at work upset, and was quickly met by Alice, one of our family members who lives with dementia and in a different reality. Dementia had compromised her ability to navigate through the daily requirements of life without support but had not taken away her instinct to connect. She sat down beside the staff member and asked,” Are you ok? Can I help you?” Her concern was poignantly genuine and, although she could not grasp the intricacies of what was upsetting the staff member, she could instinctively feel the desire to make a connection and help to ease her pain. Alice has so much to teach us and, so often caught up in the workings of life, we forget that that the most important thing is connection and being there for each other. She was, in that moment, infinitely emotionally intelligent.
We have just celebrated a decade of adopting the Butterfly (and latterly Dragonfly) ethos of support and the journey has been transformative. When we first embarked on this, we had no idea what a journey it would be. The initial upheaval was of epic proportions, and we lost many staff who were uncomfortable with the shift from task-focused to emotionally driven care. However, those of us who stayed – many of whom are still with us – share a goal: to ensure that the people we support are recognised as part of a family in which they have an identity. To achieve this we have to recognise our own vulnerability and, in doing so, share the feelings which our family members experience when dementia steers their life in a direction which was never a part of their plan. This approach emphasizes our belief that understanding and connecting with the emotional experiences of our family members is as crucial as addressing their clinical needs.
The sustainability of this approach lies in Alice’s lesson – emotional intelligence – and, for this to be effective it must be modelled by leaders.
We are a nursing home, and we recognise that our nurses are central to this philosophy. We invest in career progression for our support staff, offering the opportunity to advance onto becoming Nursing Associates and, for some, to top this up to full nursing degrees. This investment offers career progression and means we retain our nursing team but more importantly, it grows nurses who really understand our ethos of support and can balance a clinical and emotional approach. Clinical practices include medication, dressings, diagnosis, the recognition of deterioration etc. but it is so much more than that – it is the ability and desire to make each of these necessities part of a relationship in which we understand the vulnerabilities and emotional fragility of the people we support and hold that centrally in our approach. Our nurses know this and use it as an essential tool in their clinical approach every day. They have a passion for what they do and are an inspirational leadership team.
“Social care is a safe place for people of all ages to find a family, the type of family that looks out for one another and helps in times of need. The social care industry – Landermeads in particular – has shaped me in to the person I am now, it has taught me how to nurture, how to be patient, how to listen, how to care and how to love. This is evidently shown through the dedication to progression that is the Nursing Associate course; which allows a way to channel those learnt traits into something that matters.” Georgia Bowers, NA
We equip our other leaders with the tools to support both family members and staff – they enhance their skills through RQF qualifications at all levels, are Mental Health First Aiders, PBS Associate trainers, LGBTQ+ trainers to name a few – but they share the same intrinsic training as all staff in identifying their own vulnerability and the skills to use this to understand what a family member may be expressing through their behaviours. It is this which makes our Butterfly/Dragonfly accreditation sustainable. It is something which each member of staff owns and shares daily.
Alice’s lesson transcends her individual experience; it is a universal message to us all about the power of connection. None of us can offer that connection fully unless we feel empowered to do so. It’s about embracing vulnerability as a strength which can be shared to change lives. In doing that we in turn empower family members like Alice to be part of the team and have an identity even in the face of dementia.

Managing Director
Landermeads Nursing Home