Reflections
2019 20 2 01 19 9 SUMMER SUM UMM ME ER EDITION EDIIT EDI ED TIO ION
Our latest program GROW, GRAZE, GIVE Let’s talk GRATITUDE Sustainability SPECIAL
Our CEO’s message to you Welcome to the Summer issue of our Reflections Newsletter. As I write my message, I look outside at the smoke haze currently engulfing the Lake Macquarie area and hope that all of our Anglican Care community have remained safe during this extreme fire season we are experiencing. Our Mid Coast region was particularly hard hit during November but thankfully our two residential homes in the Manning Region, Storm Village at Taree and Bishop Tyrrell Place at Cundletown, were not in direct danger from the fires although they did suffer from some power and communication issues. As a provider of home care packages in the Mid Coast area, we checked in with all of our consumers and closely monitored our vulnerable consumers that were affected by the fires. During these types of circumstances, we endeavour to continue to provide essential services to consumers living in the community where it is safe to do so. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the communities that have been affected by the fires. Our heartfelt thanks go out to the firefighters who have worked tirelessly and continue to do so, in these severe conditions. I feel that the end of the year is particularly poignant as we move into 2020 and a new decade. This year has seen many changes to the aged care industry and we will continue to see more next year. The Royal Commission into Aged Care and Quality has had a massive impact on the industry. You can read more about the progress that is being made by the Commission on page 5. As an organisation, we will continue to look at the key messages and learnings emanating from the Royal Commission, identify what we are already doing, and areas that we need to work on improving. It is timely that in 2020 we will be moving into a new strategic planning cycle which will provide a fantastic forum to do this. 2020 will also be a busy year in terms of a number of our property developments coming to fruition. C A Brown Lodge at Booragul is scheduled to be completed as is our new residential aged care home in Gloucester. You can read more about our property developments on page 5. Our sustainability initiatives continue to gather momentum. I see our focus on sustainability as a natural progression in our caring philosophy – caring for the future. I am particularly excited about our new Grow Graze Give program which will give our residents and consumers the chance to become involved in our sustainability journey. On a final note, I hope that you all enjoyed a healthy, happy and safe Christmas and New Year. I look forward to working in partnership with you all to make 2020 our best year yet of providing the very best in care, support and services to our residents and consumers.
WHO ARE WE? Anglican Care is dedicated to enhancing the lifestyles of seniors by providing exceptional Residential Aged Care, Retirement Living, and Community and Home Care services to the Newcastle, Central Coast and Mid Coast regions. Anglican Care is the Aged Care Ministry of the Anglican Church of Newcastle and is a not-for-profit organisation. Front cover features carer, Joy McDermott, at our East Lake Macquarie Dementia Service.
GET IN TOUCH P 1800 733 553 E accareenquiry@anglicancare.com.au www.anglicancare.com.au Anglican Care Corporate Administration 87 Toronto Rd, Booragul NSW 2284
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK /anglicancarelifestyles
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES Looking for a career in Aged Care? We employ a huge range of roles across many fields of employment.
Colin Osborne, CEO
To find out what jobs are available, go to our Careers page on our website.
WANTING TO VOLUNTEER? We have an extensive volunteer program that is vital to supporting seniors in our community. You too could become a valuable volunteer, discover new friendships and sense of community. To find out more, give our office a call or go to the Volunteer page on our website.
GROW GRAZE GIVE We are excited to introduce a new program to Anglican Care in 2020. Our latest sustainability initiative, the program will provide an opportunity for residents and consumers across Anglican Care to have a connection with nature and to enjoy the many benefits of growing herbs and vegetables. Our harvests will then be used in the meals prepared by our hospitality services teams by way of garnishes, herbal teas and enhancements to other meals. The rationale for the name of the program is: •
Grow – vegetables and herbs as part of the Anglican Care community
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Graze – garnishes and herbal teas, enjoying our resident/consumer ‘meal of the month’
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Give – the sharing of favourite recipes culminating in our Annual Cookbook.
We would love to hear from any new or existing volunteers that would like to be involved in the program. Call Lynne Wills, our Volunteer Administrator on 4958 0078 to register your interest.
Be part of our
NEW Annual Cookbook As part of our program we are encouraging residents, consumers, family members, volunteers and employees to share their favourite main meal or dessert recipe (max of 2 per person), with us. Approximately 40 of the best recipes will be published in our NEW Annual Cookbook. PLUS our Executive Chef, Aaron Campbell, will choose one special recipe per month. The chosen recipe will be made by our hospitality team and, on one or two special days, will feature on our residential aged care home and day therapy centre’s menu.
SUBMIT YOUR RECIPE BY 10 JAN 2020 Submit your recipe(s) by post or email to: Lucinda Fetch, Anglican Care, 87 Toronto Rd, Booragul NSW 2284
OR email: recipes@anglicancare.com.au
Electronic statements - saving paper & the planet A message from our Customer Support Team To improve our customer experience and further our sustainability focus, we encourage all residents to receive copies of their Anglican Care accounts electronically via email. Along with saving paper, the carbon footprint to send an account by email is significantly less than sending a paper copy to your home. We are also trialling a change to the time period that fee accounts are issued to our Residential and Retirement Living residents. Currently, all residents receive a monthly Tax Invoice/Statement with record of all transactions processed in the previous month. This information is received after payments have been made by direct debit. To improve the timeliness of information provided to our residents, we will be sending fortnightly Tax Invoice/Statements by email immediately after direct debit of fortnightly fees. For residents who currently pay by direct debit, this change will not affect the timing of payments being made. If you receive your Tax Invoice/Statements via post and would like to change to email, please contact our friendly Finance Team on (02) 4958 0004. These changes to statement time periods will not apply to our Home Care Package and Day Therapy Centre consumers.
CHRISTMAS ACROSS ANGLICAN CARE Always a special time at Anglican Care, 2019’s Christmas celebrations were no exception. There was plenty of excitement and cheer in the lead up to Christmas with parties, carols, outings and special dining experiences, and many visits from Santa!
Let’s Talk About Gratitude
COUNTRY & WESTERN DAY Scenic Lodge There was plenty of boot scooting at Scenic Lodge for this year’s theme day – hats, boots, check shirts and line dancing galore with fantastic entertainment provided by Adam Price and a local line dancing group. Word on the street is that residents want regular line dancing lessons included in their monthly activities!
Gratitude is one of those trendy buzz words that we hear a lot about lately. Beyond its current cool factor, what does it mean and does it have longlasting benefits on our quality of life? Let’s start with a simple meaning.
thank you a lot. That all sounds easy! But wait, there’s more. These tips will require you to take action but the benefits listed above are worth it. •
Start a gratitude journal. Spend a few minutes each day writing down the things you're thankful for.
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Create a gratitude ritual. Talk about what you're grateful for at the dinner table or make it habit to tell your partner what you're thankful for before you go to sleep.
According to the website psychologytoday.com, • there are seven scientifically-proven benefits of gratitude. Having gratitude:
Make a gratitude wall. Write down the things you're grateful for on sticky notes and put them on a designated area on the wall (or a door or a mirror) so you can be reminded of all the good things you have in life.
If you look in the good old fashioned dictionary, gratitude is defined as “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness”.
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Opens the door to more relationships - by showing appreciation you can win new friends.
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• Improves physical health, with grateful people experiencing fewer aches and pains.
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Improves psychological health, by reducing a multitude of toxic emotions such as envy, resent, frustration and regret.
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Enhances empathy and reduces aggression.
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Helps people sleep better.
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Improves self-esteem.
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Increases mental strength, particularly from the perspective of reducing stress.
Sounds pretty good, but how do we go about incorporating it into our lives? The article, '10 Little Ways to Work More Gratitude Into Your Life' by Elizabeth Enochs, echoes her personal thoughts on gratitude and some great tips. Some of these tips include learning to live in the moment, make time to help others, think about what you have instead of what you want, making time for your favourite people and say
Write one thank you note per day. Decide that you're going to write emails or thank you notes to people. Appreciate your service providers, strangers, and friends and family alike and both of you will benefit from your gratitude.
We could all benefit from being more thankful and now we know how. So why not grab that journal, go help a friend or simply list all the things you are grateful for and reap the rewards. And of course, thanks for reading! Read more from our fabulous series of Let's Talk editorials via the News page of our website. www.anglicancare.com.au/news
property team
update
Our Property Services Team has certainly been kept on their toes over the past 12 months, with many projects underway across the organisation. C A Brown Lodge at Booragul continues to progress well. Based on the construction program to date, the facility will be handed over to Anglican Care in March 2020, with residents moving into their new home in late April/early May 2020. One of the main challenges at this point is related to the landscaping. Due to the drought conditions currently being experienced, the landscaping may need to be staged over time. However, this will not hinder the completion of the building or delay the project. The new residential aged care home at Clement Street, Gloucester, is also progressing well with the skeleton of the building starting to take shape. Brickwork will be commencing shortly. Anglican Care has been excited to announce the name of the home following a suggestion from a member of the Gloucester community, ‘Mirrabooka Place’. The three wings of the new home have been named after the existing facilities: Hillcrest, Narraweema and Kimbarra. The name ‘Mirrabooka’
comes from a local indigenous legend included in the book ‘Shadows Around the Buccan Buccan’ by Griseld Browne. Mirrabooka was a man who held much knowledge and was a respected man for how he looked after the welfare of his people. Toronto Nursing Home has also been undergoing some refurbishments recently. Centred on the communal areas, the updates have focused on providing a lovely environment for our residents to enjoy time in together. This included enlarging the dining room so that it can be kept as one large space or divided into smaller areas for intimate get-togethers. The servery area has also been upgraded to facilitate our ‘Meals Matter’ project. The project is all about enhancing the quality of meals provided to our residents and how we provide them. Last but not least, the Development Application for Carey Bay Gardens has been lodged with Lake Macquarie City Council. We expect that the approval process with take up to 6 months, with demolition planned to commence in mid-2020.
Royal Commission Update A message from our CEO The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety continues, with the interim report released in October. Parts of the report can be confronting to read, but I do not believe that some parts of the report are reflective of the aged care industry as a whole. Indeed at Anglican Care, we pride ourselves on our culture of respect and caring and the delivery of safe and quality care in an environment of ongoing quality improvement. We are proud of our team and recognise and appreciate what they do on a day to day basis to support and provide care and services to our residents and consumers. The Commission has, however, identified some genuine deficits and shortcomings in the broader aged care system. Many of these things will need to be addressed to make it easier for people to access the aged care services they need. There has also been recognition by the Commissioners for the need for enhanced conditions and training for aged care staff. The Commissioners have identified three areas where immediate action can be taken: Providing more Home Care Packages to reduce the waiting list for higher-level care at home; Responding to the significant over-reliance on chemical restraint in aged care, including through the seventh Community Pharmacy Agreement; and Stopping the flow of younger people with a disability going into aged care and speeding up the process of getting out those young people who are already in aged care. Following the release of the interim report, the Federal Government has announced that they would deliver a $537 million funding package. The bulk of the funds ($496.3 million) will go to an additional 10,000 home care packages and will be “strongly weighted” towards level 3 and level 4 packages. We look forward to the Commission moving to the next stage of their process in 2020, which will encompass the provision of solutions and recommendations for the industry. I want to assure you of Anglican Care’s continuing support of the Royal Commission process. We all want a safe, high quality and high performing aged care system. As I have said in my previous updates, the welfare of our residents, consumers, employees and volunteers is our highest priority. We welcome feedback and are committed to working partnership with residents, consumers, families and employees. Please feel free to raise feedback at any time through the various mechanisms available. You can also find out more and follow the progress of the Royal Commission via www.agedcare.royalcommission.gov.au
What’s NEWS? EVENTS JUST GONE HUNTER AUXILIARY ART & CRAFT FAIR Another successful function was held in October by this dynamic group of volunteers. With over 100 exhibitors, the artistic work showcased included paintings, embroideries, patchwork, baby and children’s wear and delicious, home-made cakes, sweets, pastries and jams. Amazingly, this was the 42nd time this function has been held! A huge thank you to everyone involved!
DISCOVER NEW Editorials on our website
GLOUCESTER INFO SESSIONS NEXT SESSION - 10AM MONDAY, 10TH FEBRUARY AT THE SENIOR CITIZENS CENTRE A fantastic FREE session for seniors in the Gloucester region, our special guest presenter, Nurse Practitioner Jacqui Culver, will be talking about ‘A new approach to care’. Come along and hear her advice on healthy ageing, the wellness model and Telehealth. Reserve your seat by calling 02 4958 0000 or email: bookings@anglicancare.com.au
OUT & ABOUT
OSBORN LAW VOLUNTEERS Corporate volunteers are great - representatives from Newcastle based firm Osborn Law spent Tuesday, 19 November volunteering at our East Lake Macquarie Dementia Service at Belmont. Throwing that old adage that ‘lawyers have no heart’ out the window, the Osborn Law team had a fun-filled day with our consumers which included gardening, playing quizzes and games, balloon tennis, a concert and a craft project.
VOLUNTEER UPDATE A big shout out to our wonderful volunteers who donated an amazing 15,262 hours of their time and energy to enhancing the lives of our residents and consumers in 2018/2019 across our 3 regions! We farewelled a couple of our extraordinary volunteers recently. Dot Cherry retired from her role on the Auxiliary after 30+ years of service and Francis Westbook retired from her role as a volunteer at McIntosh Court after 29 years of service. Both of these ladies are loved by everyone that has contact with them, and have contributed countless hours to their roles as volunteers and have so much history with our organisation. In the Mid Coast region, long time volunteer Les Griffis has also recently retired from his role as volunteer bus driver at Storm Village. Les will be very much missed for his cheerful nature and beautiful interactions with our residents. (Pictured below is
REWARD AND RECOGNITION September saw celebrations across Anglican Care which were scheduled to coincide with the national “Thank You for Working in Aged Care Day” on Tuesday, 10 September. 359 employees across Anglican Care received recognition for their service, from one year’s employment to 30+ years. Between them, these employees clocked up 1,268 combined years of working for Anglican Care. We love the opportunity to thank our team for their enormous contribution and dedication to caring for seniors.
MORE WELL DESERVED RECOGNITION. We just love this story! Warren from Toronto Nursing Home (affectionately known as ‘Wazza’) was recently presented with an official PDA Building hi-vis shirt and cap in recognition of his ongoing supervisory work with the builders on site doing some refurbs! We can all rest assured that the works will be completed to a high level for the benefit of all residents at Toronto Nursing Home with Wazza keeping a close eye on carpentry, flooring replacement and the installation of new lighting!
Beryl Brownlow and Dot Cherry)
COMING SOON - MARCH 2020 - IS OUR NEW
LET'S TALK SENIORS PODCAST Hosted by Kylie Jacques and Michelle Payne
This series of talks, with special guest speakers, will cover a range of topics to help keep seniors happy and healthy.
SUSTAINABILITY SPECIAL
Just released Anglican Care Sustainability Matters
VIDEO & REPORT Our sustainability initiatives continue to progress throughout the organisation across all three pillars of sustainability – economic, social and environmental. Our NEW Sustainability Matters Report and video have been developed outlining our 2022 Sustainability Targets, highlighting the work our team has done to date and our future plans. It is amazing how far we have come as an organisation as we work and learn together to reduce our environmental footprint. Discover all about our 2022 Sustainability Targets by watching our NEW Sustainability Matters video and reading our NEW Report via our 'About Us' page on our website, anglicancare.com.au.
Introducing ... Tersano Stabilised Aqueous Ozone One of our exciting initiatives is to reduce the use of chemicals used to sanitise and clean our residential aged care homes. To assist us to achieve this target we have commenced the introduction of Tersano Stabilised Aqueous Ozone (SAO™). This non-chemical solution is currently being rolled out across the organisation for cleaning and sanitising back of house, front of house and in kitchen areas in conjunction with the use of microfibre cloths. The three simple steps to SAO are as follows:
Step 1: Oxygen (O²) from the air is safely turned into O³, then infused into ordinary cold tap water. Step 2: SAO is attracted to germs, soils, and bacteria and quickly eliminates contaminates. Step 3: SAO cleans for days* and safely reverts back to water and O². *For general purpose cleaning.
Ozone, (O³), sometimes called "activated oxygen", contains three atoms of oxygen rather than the two atoms we normally breathe. Ozone is the second most powerful sterilant in the world and can be used to destroy bacteria, viruses and odours. Interestingly ozone occurs quite readily in nature, most often as a result of lightning strikes that occur during thunderstorms. In fact the "fresh, clean, spring rain" smell that we notice after a storm most often results from nature’s creation of ozone. Another exciting Sustainability Matters Project is our Grow Graze Give Program, detailed on Page 3.
Let's work together to reduce our environmental footprint, remembering actions, no matter how big or small, can make a difference.