Family Interventions with Dementia.
A structured psychological approach to supporting families living with dementia.
2-day professional training course from the Association for Psychological Therapies (APT).
Dementia rarely affects only one person. Changes in memory, behaviour, and personality inevitably affect relationships — and it is often within those relationships that distress either escalates or stabilises.
This 2-day course provides a clear, practical framework for helping professionals support families as they adapt to dementia. Rather than focusing solely on managing symptoms, the course shows how working effectively with the family system can improve quality of life for both the person with dementia and those who care for them.
The training is grounded in psychological practice and many years of clinical experience, and is designed to give participants skills they can use immediately in real clinical settings.
The course is APT-accredited and available for organisations and teams, delivered either face-to-face or online.
Executive Summary:
Family distress is one of the strongest predictors of crisis, burnout, and reduced quality of life in dementia care. When families are better supported, outcomes improve for everyone involved — including professionals and services.
This course introduces a structured framework for family intervention in dementia, helping professionals to stabilise relationships, reduce distress, and support ongoing adaptation as the condition progresses.
At the heart of the course is APT’s CARE Framework, a practical model for working with families:
C — Contain distress.
Supporting emotional regulation through validation, reassurance, and stabilising conversations.
A — Align the family system.
Improving communication, reducing conflict, and helping families work together effectively.
R — Resource the carers.
Strengthening practical, emotional, and social supports to prevent exhaustion and burnout.
E — Enable adaptation.
Helping families adjust expectations, roles, and strategies as dementia changes over time.
Participants learn how to apply this framework through structured assessment, family interviews, communication strategies, and practical interventions that can be integrated into everyday clinical work.
Who should attend:
This course is suitable for professionals who work with people affected by dementia, whether as a primary focus or as part of broader clinical responsibilities.
Typical attendees include:
- Mental health and psychiatric nurses.
- Social workers.
- Occupational therapists.
- Clinical psychologists.
- Psychiatrists.
- Support workers and allied professionals.
- Professionals working in older adult services, community teams, or residential care settings.
No prior specialist training in family therapy is required.
What the Course Covers:
Understanding Dementia Through a Family Lens.
- Definition, diagnosis, and progression of dementia.
- Common dementia presentations and their psychological impact.
- Why dementia becomes a family-system condition.
- How stress within families can amplify behavioural difficulties.
Supporting the Family.
- The emotional impact of dementia on relatives and carers.
- Engagement and building collaborative relationships.
- Professional qualities that foster trust and optimism.
- Structured family assessment and the family interview.
- Radical Validation Plus and emotional containment.
- Supporting carers’ health, resilience, and wellbeing.
- Legal, practical, and service supports.
Improving Family Communication and Stability.
- Managing criticism, hostility, and emotional over-involvement.
- Structuring effective family sessions.
- Positive reframing and problem solving.
- Reducing distress and improving communication patterns.
Helping Families Support the Person with Dementia.
- Understanding behaviour as communication.
- Responding to memory difficulties and repetitive questioning.
- Planning meaningful activities.
- Supporting dignity, confidence, and independence.
- Managing challenging or unusual behaviours.
Education and Adaptation.
- Providing information sensitively and effectively.
- Supporting families through progressive change.
- Addressing sensitive topics such as intimacy and relationship change.
- Evaluating and adapting interventions over time.
What this course will do for you:
By the end of the training you will:
- Feel more confident working with families affected by dementia.
- Understand how family dynamics influence patient wellbeing.
- Be able to conduct structured family assessments and interviews.
- Use validation and communication strategies to reduce distress.
- Support carers without increasing dependency or overwhelm.
- Address criticism, conflict, and emotional strain within families.
- Help families interpret behaviour more accurately and respond effectively.
- Develop practical, realistic intervention plans tailored to family needs.
Above all, you will gain a clear and usable framework for supporting families as they adapt to dementia over time.
What You Receive:
Attendance confers APT Level 1 Accreditation in Family Interventions with Dementia and access to associated online resources. It also gives you access to the online exam if you wish to uprate your APT accreditation to Level 2.
- Accreditation lasts for three years and is renewable via refresher learning.
- Registration of attendance lasts indefinitely.
- Participants receive a certificate confirming completion.
APT accreditation reflects consistent high ratings from practising professionals, with over 150,000 mental health professionals having attended APT training across the UK and internationally.
Why This Course Matters
While dementia cannot currently be reversed, the experience of living with it can be profoundly shaped by the stability, understanding, and resilience of the family around the person.
Effective family intervention helps reduce distress, prevent crises, and support better quality of life — for patients, families, and professionals alike.
This course is designed not simply to increase knowledge about dementia, but to help professionals support families in navigating one of life’s most challenging transitions with greater confidence, clarity, and compassion.
Booking this training is easy...Booking Options... for individuals or small groups For teams and organizations:
Live and interactive online course, delivered via Zoom or Teams exclusively for your team or organization. Price: $4,640 for a group of up to 15 people (price includes a workbook for every delegate, posted to one address, or a PDF version can be provided). Extra delegates $280 per person. Option 2: 'Train the Trainer': If you or a colleague are a senior professional (e.g. consultant psychologist) and have a talent for communication and teaching, then you are welcome to apply to become an APT-accredited tutor. You could then tutor the course in your own organization, under license. his is not only a highly appropriate use of senior professionals, but it also saves your organization the tutor-component of the fee each time you run it or your chosen modules (50% of the 'Online Live and Exclusive' fee, regardless of whether the course is held Face-to-Face or Online). To see the full benefits of this and to see whether you are eligible, click the button:
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Quick Links
Key Knowledge & Skills for Working with Older People ❯
Family Interventions with Dementia ❯
Feedback Ratings.
We continuously monitor the quality of our training by obtaining feedback on the two key scales of relevance and presentation from every course delegate. Below are the average ratings for the last two runnings of this course, which are updated periodically.
Face-to-Face
Presentation: 94%
Relevance: 92%
Online Live
Presentation: 97%
Relevance: 97%
Reviews.
APT prides itself on the feedback we receive about our courses. Below are just some of the great comments APT's Older People courses have received.
"Hooray, the best presented, organized, stress free course I have ever attended since working within mental health nursing. All sessions were relevant to my area of nursing. I hope to be attending future courses with APT."
"I would recommend this course to anybody working with older people, be they nurses, occupational therapists, doctors, family members and carers."
