About Tell TiNA, our training needs analysis tool
The number of people living with dementia in aged care is significant.
54 per cent of people living in permanent residential aged care have dementia. Within this high percentage of residents living with dementia, there are a multitude of unique lived experience and differing needs to be met.
In direct response to this, dementia-specific training and education is critical to ensure aged care providers and their staff are best equipped to provide the highest quality of care and support.
An individual’s experience can vary with age, diagnosis, capabilities, causes, the type of dementia they have and how it affects their brain and behaviour.
Dementia is deeply personal and this needs to be reflected in the care provided. It is essential for employers to promote and support dementia-specific training among their staff. This allows for care workers to tailor person-centred support appropriately, informed with evidence-based knowledge.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety inquired into the quality of aged care services in Australia, whether those services were meeting the needs of the community, and how they could be improved in the future.
The Royal Commission recommended that the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing review the Aged Care Quality Standards.
The Department has now published the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards which will commence from 1 November 2025.
Dementia-specific Standards
The Standards outline that all aged care workers should regularly receive competency-based training in relation to core matters, at a minimum including caring for individuals living with dementia.
Providers must demonstrate that they understand and manage their workforce needs and plans for the future.
Providers must also deliver funded aged care services to individuals by aged care workers who are skilled and competent in their roles, hold relevant qualifications for their roles and have expertise and experience relevant to delivering quality funded aged care services.
Exceeding the Standards
As a peak body providing support for people living with dementia, their families and carers, Dementia Australia has developed a new training needs analysis tool Tell TiNA to support the dementia care workforce to meet and exceed the new Standards.
The tool was created in response to additional requirements in strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards in which aged care providers will need to provide evidence in response to workforce planning and human resource management.
Tell TiNA is a dementia-specific training needs analysis tool, developed to support organisations to better understand the strengths and capabilities of their dementia care workforce.
The tool, which is a new feature within the mobile app Ask Annie provides organisations with an easy way to perform a training needs analysis to identify staff strengths and training gaps to improve on.
Tell TiNA is mapped to the recently released National Dementia Education and Training Standards Framework to address the need to build the dementia workforce capability.
For organisations providing dementia care, Tell TiNA provides the evidence related to strengthened Standards that are needed to demonstrate commitment to dementia-specific education.
Anyone can preview Tell TiNA by downloading the Ask Annie App of the App store. Organisations must subscribe to have access to the dashboard and manage staff participation and performance.
How Tell TiNA works
How Tell TiNA identifies training needs
Participants will be prompted to select their role and share a bit about their experience and confidence in supporting people living with dementia.
Participants will then be asked to answer questions that explore their dementia knowledge based on their role to discover where their skills can be improved.
When they are finished, they will receive their results, feedback and recommended next steps.
How Tell TiNA analyses training needs
Tell TiNA allows managers to see results in real time across their different organisational sites, whilst also allowing them to see how individuals are tracking.
Tell TiNA delivers clear data on staff training and education needs, to help turn insight into action.
After reviewing insights from Tell TiNA, organisations can explore relevant training and education to address gaps in knowledge and skills.
How to access Tell TiNA
To access Tell TiNA, dementia care providers can enquire via the link below.
Explore training after Tell TiNA
For Dementia Australia’s innovative, proven dementia training courses and tools for organisations and individual health workers supporting people living with dementia, explore professional development and training.