Faith Frost

faith-wray

Research Associate

Association for Dementia Studies

Contact Details

email: f.frost@worc.ac.uk
tel: 01905 542966

Faith Frost joined the Association for Dementia studies in July 2017 as a Research Associate.

She has worked primarily with care homes for the past 4 years, working closely alongside staff, relatives and residents to improve person-centred care through research. Faith is now working on an NIHR funded research study that commenced in Jan 2021, called Get Real with Meeting Centres: A realist evaluation of locally-driven social care for those affected by dementia.

Faith graduated in mixed-media design from the Royal College of Art. Throughout her masters, she focused her work around looking at the impact creative sensory stimulation can have on communication and the quality of life for people with dementia during their stay on acute hospitals wards. During her masters, she worked on acute wards in the Imperial College Healthcare Hospitals, London, developing and delivering creative, sensory programmes for people with dementia.

In addition, Faith has experience working in the field of environmental design, conducting research around neurodiversity and the built environment and building access and disability.

Qualifications

  • Master of Arts (With Distinction) Mixed Media Design, Royal College of Art, London
  • Bachelor of Arts, Hons 1st, Textile Design, Birmingham City University

Teaching & Research

Research: 

Faith is a Research Associate within ADS, who has experience conducting research within the care home sector with staff, family members and people living with dementia.

Her role includes:

  • Building relationships and working collaboratively with people participating in research studies
  • Project planning and the day-to-day running of projects
  • Literature searching, data collection (including conducting interviews, running focus groups and undertaking observations) and research analysis
  • Dissemination of research findings

She has worked across projects such as Namaste Care Intervention UK, a 3-year implementation project funded by the Alzheimer’s Society. The project was funded to help UK based care homes to provide better care for people living with advanced dementia, developing the optimal Namaste Care Intervention UK model, based on the work of Joyce Simard, US.

Faith has also worked on research funded by the Alzheimer’s Society and Dunhill Medical Trust titled CHARM (Care home action researcher in residence model). Throughout this project, she has worked with care homes to provide them with support to conduct their own independent research studies. The findings from this research will provide a framework for the CHARM model, with the aim for it to be rolled out across further care homes.

Faith has also worked in collaboration with CareUK, managing and conducting the research project, ‘Wear to Care: A person-centred exploratory study of care staff clothing in care homes for people living with dementia’. This research collated opinions from staff, relatives and residents about their views on staff uniforms and badges to inform future decision making.

Faith is currently working on the NIHR funded project, Get Real with Meeting Centres: A realist evaluation of locally-driven social care for those affected by dementia.

Current projects involved 

  • Get Real with Meeting Centres: A realist evaluation of locally-driven social care for those affected by dementia
  • CHARM (Care Home Action Researcher in Residence Model)

Completed projects 

  • Namaste Care Intervention UK - Delivering excellent care every day for people living with advanced dementia.
  • Wear to Care: A person-centred exploratory study of care staff clothing in care homes for people living with dementia 

Knowledge Transfer

Faith has a strong passion for integrating her experience in design with sharing her knowledge and research findings in a creative and accessible way. See below for some of the knowledge transfer she has contributed to:

Publications and dissemination

Articles

Frost, F., Atkinson, T. and Latham, I. (2020). Creating the optimal space for dementia care. The Care Environment Magazine Article

Peer-reviewed journal articles 

Latham, l., Dobson, A., Frost, F., Mumford, S., Williamson, T., (2022). Introducing CHARM, The Care Home Action Researcher-in-residence Model. Journal of Dementia Care, 30(1), 26-29

Frost, F., Bray, J., Brooker, D. & Mumford, S. (2021). What should we wear to care? An exploratory study. Journal of Dementia Care, 29(6), 24-27

Bray, J., Brooker, D. Frost, F. & Mumford, S. (2021) What should we wear to care? A person-centred study of care staff clothing in care homes for people with dementia. Nursing Older People. ISSN Print: 1472-0795 Online: 2047-8941 (In-press)

Latham, I., Brooker, D., Bray, J., Jacobson-Wright, N. and Frost, F. (2020). The Impact of Implementing a Namaste Care Intervention in UK Care Homes for People Living with Advanced Dementia, Staff and Families. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17(16), 6004

Bray, J., Brooker, D., Latham, I., Wray, F.* and Baines, D. (2019) Costing resource use of the Namaste Care Intervention UK: A novel framework for costing dementia care interventions in care homes. International Psycho-geriatrics

Research Reports

The Care Home Action Researcher-in-residence model (CHARM) Study: co-production, implementation and evaluation (December 2021)

Delivering Excellent Care Every Day for People Living with Advanced Dementia. Namaste Care UK Implementation Research (2016-2019)

Wear to Care: A person-centred exploratory study of care staff clothing in care homes for people living with dementia, A collaboration between the Association for Dementia Studies and Care UK Care Homes (December 2020)

Refereed conference presentations 

Williamson, T., Latham, L., Frost., F., (2022) CHARM: Optimising research environments in care homes – insights from the Care Home Action Researcher-in-residence Model. CADR Conference 2022 Shaping Environments; Shaping Lives? (Video presentation)

Latham, I. & Frost, F. 'CHARMed to work with you': Using the action researcher-in-residence model in care homes. UK Dementia Congress 2020 (video presentation)

Mumford, S. & Frost, F. Wear to care – uniforms in care homes, UK Dementia Congress 2020 (Video presentation)

Jacobson-Wright, N., & Wray, F., Namaste Care Initial Findings, 13th UK Dementia Congress 2018 (Conference Presentation)

Conference Posters:

Wray, F., Does Namaste care provide a practical model for caring for people living with advanced dementia in UK care homes? Initial reflections from the Namaste Care Intervention UK Implementation Project. The 'H' Factor: Holistic themes in palliative care, Worcester 2018

Latham.L., Wray, F., Does Namaste Care provide a practical model for caring for people living with advanced dementia in UK care homes? Initial reflections from the Namaste Care Intervention UK Implementation project (2018), Alzheimer’s Society Annual Conference 2018

Wray, F., Namaste. NIHR Clinical Research Network West Midlands Ageing speciality and ENRICH (Enabling Research In Care Homes) event, Birmingham 2017