
I presented a paper on meaning in life for people living with dementia at "Valuing People Living Well", the New Zealand Council for Christian Social Service Conference, in Auckland this month. One of the conference highlights was a report on a research project conducted by Brent Neilson for with ANZCCSS into the substantial social value, and capital, create by faith based, aged care organisations – Valuing Lives, Living Well. It’s a nice counterpoint to the simplistic benefit cost analysis too often used to assess the value of community services. We will include a brief summary and link to the report when it is published.
One of the sponsors of the conference was Anglicare Australia's associate member The Selwyn Foundation. Garry Smith Selwyn CEO reported on a partnership looking at the benefits new technology is offering the aged care sector, from health monitoring to physical assistance, to real support for meaningful human contact.
Other speakers threw some light on both the extent of the ageing "Tsunami" facing NZ, both opportunities as well as challenge, including the shocking associated statistic that more than 60% of people caring for someone with Alzheimer's dies before the person they are caring for does: emphasising the importance perhaps of this social capital and connectedness highlighted in the research.
The was a stirring speech by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, New Zealand’s Chief Science Advisor, about the value and availability of real evidence and from Lin Hatfield Dodds, the outgoing executive director of Uniting Care Australia, about how faith based services can put their evidence and values together to drive change in public policy.
One strong theme at the conference of real interest to me was the emerging shape of workforce training in NZ. They have made a name for the whole area of community care and social service work - from personal care workers, to cleaners, to drug and alcohol support workers - and started to develop a whole lot of core competencies for people who work in this broad sector. The term is Kaiawhina. And in listening to various discussions about wages, training, and common understanding; about recognising prior experience; about expectations and giving value to that work, this approach highlights social contribution Kaiawhina make through their work. It's an affirming way to conceptualise our future ambitions for the communities we are building, and our role as helpers and supporters.
There was also a great session on aged care and architectural design, in which the point was made that somehow the quality of facility design is so much better in countries such as Denmark. Architect Euan MacKellor from Jasmax suggested that high taxes give citizens a real interest in the effective use of public funds, and so they want their publicly funded buildings to be very well designed! Another benefit of adequate revenue raising.
I also enjoyed some time at Selwyn's headquarters and at Selwyn village, their first and largest aged care facility. It was inspiring to see how Selwyn is taking on the significant task of providing of social housing - on the one hand - and setting up an institute for spirituality and ageing (on the other) to investigate how best, and most meaningfully, to support people in the final years of their life.
While we are on the subject of aged care around the world, you may know I recently had a holiday in Japan. I took advantage of the trip (to the oldest, I mean most elderly, society in the world) to make contact with a couple of the Japanese contingent I met at a dementia conference last year, and I got see a few very interesting projects. One I was particularly excited by was "Share Kanazawa" - a housing and community development which included the aged, disability group homes, university students, and a number of shops and community services. It was co-located with an elementary school and designed so that people saw each other regularly, contributed to some extent to the general wellbeing, and used the same spaces.
I could also write a lot about how good the public transport is, and especially how good the toilets are in Japan, and how that is probably very very age friendly, but this might not be the place to do that.
Ageing and aged care are clearly two of the big challenges of our immediate future. The message I keep getting, in looking around Australia and beyond, is that is our physical and social connectedness that offer the most positive path to addressing them.
I presented a paper on meaning in life for people living with dementia at "Valuing People Living Well", the New Zealand Council for Christian Social Service Conference, in Auckland this month. One of the conference highlights was a report on a research project conducted by Brent Neilson for with ANZCCSS into the substantial social value, and capital, create by faith based, aged care organisations – Valuing Lives, Living Well. It’s a nice counterpoint to the simplistic benefit cost analysis too often used to assess the value of community services. We will include a brief summary and link to the report when it is published.
One of the sponsors of the conference was Anglicare Australia's associate member The Selwyn Foundation. Garry Smith Selwyn CEO reported on a partnership looking at the benefits new technology is offering the aged care sector, from health monitoring to physical assistance, to real support for meaningful human contact.
Other speakers threw some light on both the extent of the ageing "Tsunami" facing NZ, both opportunities as well as challenge, including the shocking associated statistic that more than 60% of people caring for someone with Alzheimer's dies before the person they are caring for does: emphasising the importance perhaps of this social capital and connectedness highlighted in the research.
The was a stirring speech by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, New Zealand’s Chief Science Advisor, about the value and availability of real evidence and from Lin Hatfield Dodds, the outgoing executive director of Uniting Care Australia, about how faith based services can put their evidence and values together to drive change in public policy.
One strong theme at the conference of real interest to me was the emerging shape of workforce training in NZ. They have made a name for the whole area of community care and social service work - from personal care workers, to cleaners, to drug and alcohol support workers - and started to develop a whole lot of core competencies for people who work in this broad sector. The term is Kaiawhina. And in listening to various discussions about wages, training, and common understanding; about recognising prior experience; about expectations and giving value to that work, this approach highlights social contribution Kaiawhina make through their work. It's an affirming way to conceptualise our future ambitions for the communities we are building, and our role as helpers and supporters.
There was also a great session on aged care and architectural design, in which the point was made that somehow the quality of facility design is so much better in countries such as Denmark. Architect Euan MacKellor from Jasmax suggested that high taxes give citizens a real interest in the effective use of public funds, and so they want their publicly funded buildings to be very well designed! Another benefit of adequate revenue raising.
I also enjoyed some time at Selwyn's headquarters and at Selwyn village, their first and largest aged care facility. It was inspiring to see how Selwyn is taking on the significant task of providing of social housing - on the one hand - and setting up an institute for spirituality and ageing (on the other) to investigate how best, and most meaningfully, to support people in the final years of their life.
While we are on the subject of aged care around the world, you may know I recently had a holiday in Japan. I took advantage of the trip (to the oldest, I mean most elderly, society in the world) to make contact with a couple of the Japanese contingent I met at a dementia conference last year, and I got see a few very interesting projects. One I was particularly excited by was "Share Kanazawa" - a housing and community development which included the aged, disability group homes, university students, and a number of shops and community services. It was co-located with an elementary school and designed so that people saw each other regularly, contributed to some extent to the general wellbeing, and used the same spaces.
I could also write a lot about how good the public transport is, and especially how good the toilets are in Japan, and how that is probably very very age friendly, but this might not be the place to do that.
Ageing and aged care are clearly two of the big challenges of our immediate future. The message I keep getting, in looking around Australia and beyond, is that is our physical and social connectedness that offer the most positive path to addressing them.
Roland with Lin Hatfield Dodds and Paul Barber at “Valuing People, Living Well” in Auckland