START Training – Oct/Nov 2026
Booking now open for our next START training dates for clinically and non-clinically qualified staff to deliver START. Email DoP.START@ucl.ac.uk
Book nowWhat is START?
START is an eight session, manual-based one-to-one programme for family members of relatives with dementia, with the aim of reducing depression and anxiety in the short and long term.
Our clinical trial showed that START reduced depression and anxiety for family carers of people with dementia when measured at eight months and two years after they had received the intervention.
Following the success of the START trial, we have funding from the Alzheimer’s Society to widen access to START by adapting it for delivery in the third sector and to Minority Ethnic (ME) groups, within existing structures of the Alzheimer’s Society (AS) and the South Asian community in the first instance.
Watch the below video to find out more about START and how it can help:
Embed this video to your website
We have shared the code below so that you can embed the above video onto your own service website:
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START Resources
Access to START resources is free. Resources include START manuals for carers and facilitators in English, Hindi and Urdu (for UK use), English, Kannada and Tamil (for India use), Japanese and Spanish. We also have START manuals for carers of people with PDD & DLB, as well as START Relaxation Exercises (MP3).
To get access, we ask you to fill out the form below. Once completed you will be sent a link to our SharePoint site with all our resources available.
FAQs
To access the START manuals/resources, please complete this short form first. Once submitted, your request will be processed within 5 working days, then you’ll be able to view and download the resources here. If you still can’t access them please email us on dop.start@ucl.ac.uk
The START practitioner training is designed for professionals and staff who support family carers (e.g., NHS, social care, voluntary sector).
If you’re contacting us as a family member or carer, this practitioner training may not be the right fit. Please share a little about what you’re looking for to this email dop.start@ucl.ac.uk, we can point you to the most appropriate option and resources.
The training is suitable for practitioners who support family carers of people living with dementia, including psychology, nursing, AHPs, social workers, dementia navigators/advisors and professionals working in the voluntary sector.
To book your places, the finance team at your trust or organisation will need to arrange payment via a purchase order (PO). Once the PO is raised, they can send it to us directly and we will contact our finance team to issue the invoice. You won’t need to complete the online registration yourself.
If you have any questions about the process please email the team at dop.start@ucl.ac.uk. We will then confirm next steps and hold places accordingly.
We’re happy to hold places but if additional people register and complete payment in the meantime, availability may change. We will always do our best to accommodate teams.
There are no standardised measures for START, so you are welcome to use whichever measures you find suitable. However, we would recommend the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), which we used in our trial. It is a quick self-complete measure for carers’ anxiety and depressive symptoms.
If you would like to further discuss outcome measures, you can email DoP.START@ucl.ac.uk and join our Community of Practice, where we meet regularly to discuss the practical delivery of START in services.
You can find more information in our publications (listed on our website). However, if you would like to discuss setting up and delivering START, you can email DoP.START@ucl.ac.uk and join our Community of Practice, where we meet regularly to discuss the practical delivery of START in services.