Hello, I’m Kathryn Grace…
We Care Design started as a research/exploration twitter project for my personal journey as an Alzheimer’s Carer in 2010. It is now growing into a consultancy business.
The tagline for We Care Design is…
Service Design meets Healthcare for Adults & Elderly with Dementia – Patients, Pros and Carers. Discovering how it is and how it can be.
The aim was originally to gain a thorough understanding of Alzhemer’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Care, Service Options and any other wisdom that would support me in my new role. Through twitter, I hoped too to connect with other carers, but at the start there were very few carers online in the UK.
I am a Designer by profession, most recently I specialise in Service Design & Innovation – skills that help me on this journey include: problem solving, listening, prototyping, designing, visualising, communication, testing, iterating, information design, collaboration, digital and mobile service design.
Services available for Alzheimer’s in the UK are fragmented and the description of ‘post code lottery’ definitely applies. This current situation of no national service standard, puts family carers at an even bigger disadvantage for planning and managing care of their loved ones, more stressful than it already has to be. So family carers are forced into a kind of DIY coping mechanism, and part of this, for me at the start, was the twitter account We Care Design.
Five years down the line I have become a bit of an expert on dementia care in the home and am looking to develop and use my new skills and insights to enable innovation with and by others and particularly the big players in the UK. The needs are too high to let things happen by chance/not happen at all. People with dementia are important and we can make their lives and the lives of their loved ones, more easy and less stressful than they currently have to be.
The person at the centre of We Care Design is of course my father and his care and my own needs as a carer. The observations written here are personal and of course this is just one experience of dementia (there are many more). I am always happy to connect with people who can contribute to my toolkit of skills and knowledge on Alzheimer’s and I am always happy to collaborate with others and share my insights… so please do say hello!
Thanks for visiting…
WeCareDesign 