Humanizing Dementia Care: Dutch Founders Of The Hogeweyk Coming To Halifax
HALIFAX— The Netherlands is home to The Hogeweyk, a Dutch long-term care model for residents living with advanced dementia.
The Hogeweyk is a gated community built to resemble a neighbourhood. Within the neighbourhood, there are 27 group homes surrounded by a theatre, a restaurant, a pub, a grocery store, and extracurricular clubs. All are created to give people living with advanced dementia support and a safe space to live.
Founders of The Hogeweyk, Eloy van Hal and Jannette Spiering, developed the community after working together 20 years ago in a more traditional nursing home in the Netherlands. van Hal said the vision was to care for people living with dementia by giving them a normal life.
“A ward is not a nice to place to live for the rest of your life. Not for you, not for me, and also not for people with dementia,” said van Hal.
In the traditional nursing home where they worked, they ran a pilot where they made smaller groups of residents, brought in some normal furniture, and started to cook together. The ward created small living areas for the residents and implemented lifestyles for them.
Throughout the pilot, van Hal and Spiering learned a lot about humanizing dementia care and decided to develop the next step. This led to the founding of a neighbourhood, instead of an institution. The first part of the Hogeweyk neighbourhood opened in 2008 and the second part in 2010.
Canada-wide tour
Starting in Halifax on Oct. 14, Spiering, van Hal, and Aimée Foreman, the founder of Fredericton-based company Silvermark, will start a Canadian tour to share the long-term care model.
Spiering will explain the general model of The Hogeweyk and how to plan similar developments through their Be Advice Paradigm. This paradigm demonstrates the generalized model of their long-term care model for residents living with dementia.
Foreman will talk about how the model can be applied in Canada. Her company, Silvermark, was founded in 2018 when she started working on projects based on her networks and interests.
Over the last year and a half, she has been building a New Brunswick-based team to help people entering, and those who shape, the “silver economy” and care sector.
“We guide aging care leaders to make impact-driven decisions,” said Foreman. “The way we do that is by assessing the greatest challenge in front of them, aligning priorities and perspectives — because much of the work in the sector crosses stakeholders.”
Foreman said part of her work with Silvermark includes a global network. She had the opportunity to visit various models and care homes across the world, including The Hogeweyk in the Netherlands.
“[The Hogeweyk] has been internationally known and recognized as a leading model, particularly in normalizing dementia,” she said.
Having the chance to visit The Hogeweyk community had a “tremendous impact” on Foreman, leading to her collaborate with van Hal and Spiering.
“People have some understanding in the sector about it in terms of its design, because it is a different design than what we would be accustomed to seeing here in Canada in some regards,” said Foreman. “But it’s not just the design. It’s the model of care and also the approach in general that has resulted in their developing the Be Advice Paradigm.”
This paradigm can be applied as a tool for developing one’s own model. The idea of the model is rooted in a human-centred approach to care.
‘Aging is not an illness’
The tour is called Humanizing Dementia Care and Foreman said that is the number one goal of the Canadian tour. Over the course of their two-week schedule, van Hal, Spiering, and Foreman will have conversations and share insights from these two international thought leaders.
The goal of the conversations is to push Canada to think about how caring for people living with dementia can be done differently.
Foreman’s co-worker, April McAllister, will be joining the tour as well.
Foreman has been developing her relationship with van Hal and Spiering over the last year and got asked if Silvermark would be their Canadian partner. Foreman said the goal of the tour speaks directly to her heart. Her motivation for this tour is being able to connect with others across Canada who are ready to make a greater impact on dementia care.
“Aging is not an illness. It’s a social experience, social condition, that we all experience,” said Foreman.
van Hal said they want to do this tour because there is a demand for it in Canada and people want to improve the care for people with dementia. The tour is not just about the health care providers, but everyone in society.
“It takes a lot of time to implement new models and so now the goal is to show Canada that it can be done,” said van Hal.
The tour will make stops in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver from Oct. 14 to Oct. 27.
The Hogeweyk
The Hogeweyk is officially licensed as a skilled nursing facility, meaning it provides long-term, highly complex care for people in their last phase of life with dementia.
“We know now that people with dementia and other health issues … want to live a normal life as much as possible,” van Hal said
Residents in their last phase of life still want to enjoy the sun and live in a comfortable, recognizable environment.
van Hal has been employed by the Vivium Care Group for 20 years and now spends his time working for Be Advice, the advisory department of Vivium, the owner of The Hogeweyk.
Since 2015, he has been advising people full-time about the concept of The Hogeweyk and also consulting with clients about how they can create something similar in their country. They have also created their Be Advice Paradigm, which is a generalized model idea of the long-term care model for residents with dementia.
“Many people leave in tears when they visit The Hogeweyk, that this is possible. But we always say don’t copy but develop your own model and that’s what I try to do,” he said.
Within The Hogeweyk neighbourhood, there are 27 group homes. Each house has space for six to seven residents who more or less share the same daily lifestyle preferences.
All the group homes have an assigned team of care workers, which is important to have a familiar face. The care workers must know not only their name and their medication but their hobbies, interests and lifestyle.
The care workers cook all the meals for the residents, but they can participate if they would like.
Unlike a traditional care home, the residents of The Hogeweyk do not have a set list of things to do every day, instead, they follow the rhythm of the residents they live with. Residents can leave their houses and walk throughout the neighbourhood that has a theatre square, gathering spaces, a grocery store and a restaurant.
“We think that Canada is ready for this and that more people, more providers, more investors, more government should promote this more social model of care, this more human model,” said van Hal. “So not promoting The Hogeweyk, but make … steps forward for improving the quality of life.”
Jessica Saulnier is an intern with Huddle. Send her feedback or tips: [email protected]