Andrea Lloyd
Domain Specialist
“I am committed to providing person-centered solutions to the social care sector”
After obtaining her degree (1:1BS in Social Science) Andrea embarked on a 25 year career in the Social Care Sector working in the fields of Dementia, Older Persons, Physical, Sensory and Intellectual Disabilities. She is an experienced manager with a strong commitment to providing quality, person-centered service delivery and has led teams working in day, homecare and after hours services.
As part of ongoing professional development Andrea has taken part in a wide variety of specialist training such as Optimal Individualised Service Design, which focuses entirely on person-centric service design. She was also selected by Age and Opportunity to train as an Ageing with Confidence facilitator which delivered courses to older persons groups and organisations.
During her career she was always driven to improve services by identifying and addressing service deficits. For example, she has contributed significantly to the field of Dementia care by:
- Involvement in the creation of National Dementia Standards.
- Development of a Life Story Book (2007), a key component of Dementia care, for the Alzheimer Society of Ireland. This was in response to the fact that, whilst recognised as an invaluable tool, very few people with Dementia actually had such a book. The book was successfully launched prompting appearances on Ireland a.m and the Pat Kenny radio show. The book also won a national design award and is still sold by the ASI.
- Development of a sensory garden at Pinegrove Day Centre in Waterford built with people with Dementia in mind. This collaboration with Diarmuid Gavin drew great praise from President Mary Robinson at the opening ceremony.
In 2010, as National Coordinator of Services for older persons for Respond! housing, she played a major role in the development of support services to older persons living in independent living accommodation by:
- Undertaking a national research project to ascertain the needs of residents, which was published by Respond!. This work included both quantitative and qualitative methods to produce a thorough understanding of residents’ needs and the best way to support residents.
- Developing a positive ageing strategy for residents.
Andrea’s work in this area was so well received that she was approached by Sunbeam House services to produce a strategy that would identify the support needs of people with an Intellectual Disability as they aged. This culminated in the production of ‘Through my Life – A Positive Ageing strategy’. This piece of work involved consultation with families, staff, service users and relevant experts in the field.
Recently, Andrea has reflected on the work carried out on the My Life story book and feels that there is now an opportunity to update and enhance the book by using current technology. Using a digital model has the potential to reach more people with Dementia and has huge potential to bring the concept to other markets. The time is right to take the Life Story Book to the next level and to that end Andrea has founded Emmto and has begun to put together a team that can make this happen.