ABSTRACT
Thus far the improvements that have been made in dementia care have been far more concerned with the quality of life of the clients than with that of staff. The well-being of care assistants, especially, has been sadly neglected. Sooner or later, however, it becomes clear that there is a close connection between the personhood of clients and that of the staff; it is only a short-term expedient to ignore the latter issue. There are many ways in which an organisation can take care of staff, and we will look briefly at eight of these. What follows is based on a document written by Robert Woods and myself for a charity wanting to improve its dementia care; it draws in part on our own experience, and in part on consultation with several very experienced practitioners (Kitwood and Woods 1996).
