Meet Our Founder and Director

Victoria Hart, CTRS, DCP, DMA

Director and Founder Victoria Hart’s journey towards working with people with cognitive loss began when her father was diagnosed with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a type of frontotemporal dementia. A professional opera singer and voice teacher with a Doctorate in Music, Vicky used a variety of skills and modalities to connect with her father and maintain a loving connection with him throughout the years of his illness. Despite his disease process, Vicky was able to help her father access memories, language abilities, and emotional responses that, on the surface, appeared to have been lost. This powerful experience with her father and her subsequent volunteer work with people with dementia led Vicky to make a career change. Vicky is now a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (CTRS) and Dementia Care Practitioner (DCP) who specializes in working with people with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), in the early stages of Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia.

In April 2020, in response to the isolation of the COVID-19 lockdown, Vicky launched A Gathering of Minds as an online community providing a safe, stimulating, and inclusive “club” for people with early-stage memory loss. Vicky continues to provide A Gathering of Minds’ members with programs that engage, intrigue, enliven, and reconnect people with their authentic selves.