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Habilitation is one wonderful model of dementia care that helps people with dementia to live their best life and empowers care partners to feel (and be) more successful.

Join us to:
Discuss the 5 tenets of Habilitation
Identify strategies to promote moments of positivity, peace and connection for people living with dementia at every stage of the illness
Apply Habilitation strategies to real case scenarios

Thursday, May 23, 2024
4:00 – 5:30 pm
Doors open at 3:30pm. Please join us for light refreshments.
This program is sponsored by Litchfield Health & Wellness Resources

Presented by Donna B. Fedus, M.A.
Gerontologist & Founder
Donna Fedus is a gerontologist educator, adjunct professor, program strategist, instructional designer, and researcher, who has worked enthusiastically in the field of aging for more than 30 years, so far. Its more than a job – it’s her life’s work! Critical to Donna’s mission is offering alternatives to the tragedy narrative and stigma that often surround aging, caregiving, and dementia.

Donna is also an entrepreneur. She founded gerontology education company Borrow My Glasses, which offers scalable learning solutions, training and evaluation services for organizations, professionals, educators, students, and individuals looking to embrace the many opportunities brought by longevity.

Over more than three decades, Donna has immersed in the field of aging becoming known as a subject matter expert, continually developing new and creative ways to engage and educate audiences. Topics range widely for healthcare and social services professionals, business leaders, user experience specialists, family caregivers, college students, and clergy. Donna’s primary interests in aging, caregiving and dementia are reflected in the three courses she developed and has taught since 2017 on a rotating basis an adjunct professor at Quinnipiac University: Dementia Fundamentals, Social Issues in Family Caregiving, and Sociology of Aging.

Donna does some research in addition to collaborative evaluation work. She is Principal Investigator (PI) of the Gerontology Relevance Study, in which college students found studying gerontology to be relevant to their personal and professional lives after engaging in a self-study module. Donna also served as PI throughout a five-year collaboration between BMG and AARP to develop, pilot and evaluate Connecticut’s Disrupt Aging Model. The model, shown to transform attitudes about aging, was presented at multiple conferences, recognized by AARP as a best practice in innovation, and replicated in colleges and communities nationwide.

Donna contributes to the field through board service and committee work. She currently co-chairs the education workgroup of the Connecticut Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Coalition. This group, convened by the CT Dept of Public Health and the Alzheimer’s Association, is developing a statewide strategic plan to address Alzheimer’s. Donna serves on the Board of Directors of The Towers at Tower Lane in New Haven, CT. She is a member of Quinnipiac University Committee for Age Inclusivity, and a founding member of the Grandfamilies Outcome Workgroup (GrOW), a national group that works in support of kinship families. Donna is a Contributing Editor for Grandfamilies: The Contemporary Journal of Research, Practice and Policy.

Donna is a two-time winner of the “Stop Ageism Now” Campaign Partner Award from the Agency on Aging of South Central CT. She was honored with the Employee of the Year award at The Consultation Center, Yale University and the Einstein Award at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, Donna earned her master’s degree with distinction in social gerontology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991.