Anglicare Australia Awards 2004

 

Organisational excellence in aged care

WINNER: Anglicare SA, for Ian George Court Frail Aged facility (Adelaide, SA): demonstrating an effective response to an identified need that older homeless people have a right to access aged care services (including residential care) designed around their particular needs.

Ian George Court is based on a belief that people who have a life story which includes long-term marginalisation, disadvantage, homelessness, alcohol and other drug use, require a different approach to service delivery than the mainstream. Since its establishment in February 2004, Ian George Court has had a 100% satisfaction rate. The success of this project has resulted in a further grant to build a second similar facility.

For more details contact: cmulligan@anglicare-sa.org.au

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Benetas, for ‘A good age of life’ project (Melbourne, Victoria): for demonstrating across-the-board organisational excellence in the promotion of aged care as rewarding and important, and underlining the importance of valuing older people.

Through its campaign, ‘A good age of life’ Benetas is actively challenging society’s notion of what it means to grow older and what the general community’s response should be. Benetas is involved in activities and initiatives at a national, state and local level to bring about a paradigm shift in these notions; to generate and create an alternate view – a positive approach to aged care service delivery and the images of ageing.

For more details contact: emcs@benetas.com.au

 

 

Organisational excellence in community services

 

WINNER: The Samaritans Foundation for ‘Creative Times’ (Newcastle, NSW): based on an after-school, play-based structure, Creative Times is a prevention and intervention program for children at risk of abuse and their families.

Creative Times is an initiative of the Samaritans Foundation, operating in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie areas. The program also provides opportunities for clients aged 13-18 years where developmental and social pressures often reach crisis point and the threat of returning to old patterns is often at it’s highest.

For more details contact: jmarshall@samaritans.org.au

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED - individual achievement : Anglicare Tasmania’s Valerie Turk (Hobart, Tasmania): A member of Anglicare Tasmania’s reception staff for the last twenty years, Valerie provides the first impression of Anglicare for some of the most vulnerable, marginalised people in the community. Her non-judgemental approach to people establishes an immediate empathetic rapport. She values respect and demonstrates this on a daily basis.

For more details contact: l.silk@angicare-tas.org.au

 

 

Innovation

 

WINNER: The Craigieburn & District Family Day Care Scheme
operated by the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Melbourne
This program is all about community capacity building – caring for people so that they in turn can care for others in their community. The ‘Step into Family Day Care’ program offers accredited training in community services for unemployed women. Graduates are then offered employment within the day care scheme and further training. In its first 18 months the program trained 36 unemployed women and 24 existing carers from 18 different cultural backgrounds. This resulted in 94 families (120 children) coming off the waiting list into family day care.

For more details contact: ebuckley@bsl.org.au

HIGHLY COMMENDED: TRACC Strengthening Families Program, Anglicare Southern Queensland for a lateral approach to child protection with ‘outstanding outcomes for children and families’ [referee’s comment].

Anglicare TRACC Strengthening Families Program considered ways of addressing child protection issues while still enabling children to remain with their families by developing and implementing an intensive family-based service and identifying and using an appropriate assessment tool that would ensure the model was meeting the needs of the children, their families and the government authorities. The effectiveness of this program has reduced the number of children needing to be separated from their families and placed in foster care.

For more details contact: avrylg@tracc.org

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Anglicare Victoria’s Eastern Youth Services Meridian Program (Melbourne, Victoria): and in particular for Rosemary Paterson and Helen Landau for dealing with the often hidden problem of violence against women by adolescents.

‘Breaking the Cycle’ is a group therapy program for mothers whose adolescents are behaving in violent or abusive ways. The program is underpinned by the belief that responding to violence may require both a legal/social control response, as well as a therapeutic intervention. Following group intervention the mothers reported significantly less violence, personal anxiety and fatigue. Research and evaluation of the program has followed with the method now documented as a training manual attracting world-wide interest.

For more details contact: helen.landau@anglicarevic.org.au OR rosemary.paterson@anglicarevic.org.au

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Anglicare South Australia’s Boarding House Project (Adelaide, SA): for reducing the incidence of homelessness and inappropriate admission to residential care and demonstrating excellent coordination with other service providers.

Boarding House standards vary greatly and are generally regarded to be in poor condition. The Anglicare SA Boarding House Project aims to reduce the vulnerability of people living in boarding houses through securing their accommodation, or providing assistance to access other more appropriate accommodation, thus reducing the incidence of more tertiary forms of homelessness, and reducing inappropriate admission to residential care. Staff facilitate appropriate and effective management of health/financial problems, provide other appropriate assistance to reduce potential for further social isolation and exploitation, and facilitate referral and acceptance into more appropriate, longer term services. The model ensures a flexible and responsive service to meet the needs of a diverse group of individuals.

For more details contact: tcleary@anglicare-sa.org.au

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED – organisational enhancement: Brotherhood of St Laurence, for staff recruitment model in residential aged care (inner city Melbourne, Victoria): an innovative approach to recruiting staff in the face of employment constraints in aged care.

The Brotherhood of St Laurence (BSL) Residential Aged Care Facilities have introduced a model for recruiting staff into their facilities. BSL have particular problems in recruiting staff for its two inner city facilities. BSL Employment Services worked with BSL Residential Aged Care Services to develop a traineeship program which is now seen as an added employment benefit for people considering work with BSL. The program has now been operating for nearly three years and in this period 15 people have graduated with certificates, 12 of whom have found employment in BSL facilities.

For more details contact: agruner@bsl.org.au

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED – organisational enhancement: Anglicare SA, for electronic management system in residential aged care (Adelaide, SA): an excellent and deceptively simple way of ensuring effective information management.

Anglicare SA Residential Aged Care has developed an electronic management system to improve and evaluate service delivery. The system combines management and quality assurance initiatives into a single package built on a platform that did not require customised programming. The system has been introduced to all five residential aged care facilities where it has proved to be a new flexible solution to the problem of effective information management.

For more details contact: mrowe@anglicare-sa.org.au

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED – individual achievement: Anglicare Tasmania’s Steven Weinert, for his ‘Remember When?’ forum (Hobart, Tasmania): a forum for bridging the generation gap by fostering mutual understanding, tolerance and respect between younger and older people in the community.

Steven Weinert works in Anglicare Tasmania’s ‘Options’ program which provides adolescent mediation and family therapy to young people and their parents to resolve issues of conflict and help prevent youth homelessness. Steven introduced the ‘Remember When?’ Forum where members of the community were encouraged to reconnect with and reflect on the experiences of their youth. The forum has helped to foster mutual understanding, tolerance and respect between younger and older people in the community.

For more details contact: s.weinert@anglicare-tas.org.au

 

 

Best Presentation in the Media

 

WINNER: Anglicare Southern Queensland, for Enable Lifestyle Support Services (Roma, QLD): demonstrating extensive use of media to promote the stories and evidence of client and family satisfaction relating to this disability support service, and providing an opportunity to encourage families caring for people with disabilities to access the community activities and learning skills provided by the organisation.

Enable Lifestyle Support Services provides opportunities for people with a disability in the Roma community to participate in a wide variety of activities and learning skills. It aims to assist clients to achieve self-determination in their lives and also provides respite for carers of the disabled. Enable Lifestyle Support Services has enlisted the support of the local council, Roma businesses and the media to promote disability awareness throughout the south-west Queensland community.

For more details contact: droche@ripnet.aunz.com

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED – marketing: Anglicare SA Media Department, for the Archbishop’s Appeal Challenge (Adelaide, SA): imaginative and effective use of the media, as part of a campaign to raise $1million in three years to build a specially designed home for frail, aged, disadvantaged people, many of whom have been homeless.

The Marketing Department devised and managed a creative and active promotional plan making excellent use of media, with the result that the full amount was raised in less than 18 months.

For more details contact: jking@anglicare-sa.org.au

 

 

Excellence in parish-based caring

 

WINNER: St John’s Care (Reid, ACT), a program of Anglicare Canberra and Goulburn: for its responsiveness to local need and evidence of parish support and parish involvement at different levels.

St John’s Care (SJC) is committed to the goal of responding to such community and welfare needs as become apparent in the ACT community, specifically in providing material emergency assistance, offering developmental programs, and facilitating provision of counselling, trauma and bereavement support services. SJC remains responsive, relevant to changing needs.

For more details contact: st.johns.care@bigpond.com

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Brotherhood of St Laurence, for Sambell Lodge (Clifton Hill, Melbourne): Lodge residents, from socially and financially disadvantaged backgrounds, who themselves have been cared for are now caring for others.

Sambell Lodge is a forty-three bed low-care hostel, located in Clifton Hill, Melbourne. The residents come from socially and financially disadvantaged backgrounds. A majority come from dysfunctional families and have a variety of diagnoses with varying degrees of dementia and/or alcohol abuse.

A small group of the residents go out onto the streets of Collingwood each Sunday evening to help with the Margaret Oates Soup Van to feed the homeless. Manager of Sambell Lodge, Paul Brophy comments that “the sense of personal fulfilment and sense of worth that our residents receive from helping is immeasurable”.

For more details contact: sambell@bsl.org.au

 

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