History

Developed in 1998 by Anne Basting (PhD), groups across the world now use TimeSlips to generate stories, produce plays and art exhibits, and to rekindle hope for human connection among people struggling with dementia.

1998
Basting received a national Brookdale Fellowship to support research testing whether the TimeSlips method could be replicated in 4 adult day centers, two in Milwaukee, WI and two in New York City.

2000
Initial grants from the Helen Bader Foundation, the Extendicare Foundation, and Blue Cross Blue Shield, helped support the creation of the original training manual and video, and the production of a play, an art exhibit, and roundtable discussions about creativity and dementia in Milwaukee. (Team included: Gulgun Kayim, Karen Stobbe, and Beth Thielen.)

2001
The TimeSlips team produces a play and art exhibit in New York City based on stories that emerged from storytelling circles there. (Team included: Beth Thielen, Paul Lucas, Gail Winar, and Christopher Bayes.)

2003
Basting moves to Milwaukee to direct the Center on Age & Community at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. With the support from the Commonwealth Fund, the Center establishes 8 regional training bases for TimeSlips, and conducts a 20 nursing home study on the impact of TimeSlips on relationships between residents with dementia and their caregivers.

2006
The Center on Age & Community hosts Creative Expression and Dementia Care: Moving Forward in Research. Researchers in dementia care, care providers and artists gathered to discus how to better replicate and evaluate the impact of creative expression in a wide array of dementia care settings. In May 2006, The Door Community Auditorium performs the TimeSlips play. 

2007
The Center on Age & Community hosts a TimeSlips Train the Trainer event, certifying 30 trainers representing 11 bases across the United States.  Trainers began by practicing the method at 5 different sites across Milwaukee and talking indepth about the technique and how and why it works so well.  The second day featured a visual arts training workshop by Sam Heinly in the Memories in the Making method.  On the third morning, trainers collobrated to offer their own training workshop to those registered to become facilitators.  This embedded workshop included 3, simultaneous demonstration sessions at Luther Manor Adult Day Center.  

Also in 2007, Thomas Fritsch and Jung Kwak submit their article on the TimeSlips 20 nursing home study to the Gerontologist!   

2008
The "Story" page of the TimeSlips website is revised to enable facilitators from around the world to share their stories.  TimeSlipsTrainers plan storytelling celebrations in honor of TimeSlips' 10th anniversary.  

For more information on research studies on TimeSlips, or other writings about the method, click here.