Spring Update from Our CEO
– 23 September 2014 –
It is with excitement and pride we received news from the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency, as being successful for the second year running in winning two national Better Practice Awards.
The program created by the team at ANZAC Hostel and led by their lifestyle coordinator Linda Brownfield, “What is important to you – HELP Conversation” has been well recognised as very innovative, person centred lifestyle program. Our other residential facilities are currently rolling out this program across all sites to ensure that all residents will benefit from the program.
Secondly, a well deserved award is the Vasey RSL Care “Staff Development and Retention” led by our HR team. This is the result of a lot of hard work from all managers and staff. This is an organisational award and recognises our commitment to retain our staff, to provide them with opportunity for staff development and growth and of the dedication of the leadership team to support staff.
As part of further progress towards implementation of the “Together Tomorrow” project initiated in 2012, we have recently launched our new facebook page in addition to our new website. Subscribe to our e-newsletter and/ or like us on our facebook page, and you will be regularly updated on the busy life of our Vasey RSL Care community, receive industry news and other helpful links.
We also want to hear from you regarding what you like about Vasey RSL Care and any suggestions on how we can be better. Our Vasey RSL Care ambassadors, the “Saluting Excellence” team are working hard to keep you up to date with what happening at Vasey RSL Care.
Dementia is the single greatest cause of disability in older Australians. There are more then 332,000 Australians living with dementia and this number is expected to increase by one third to 400,000 in less than ten years.
We at Vasey RSL Care are well aware of the increasing challenges we are facing, not only in looking after our clients with dementia but also supporting their families and friends. Over the last three years our training and development program has heavily focused on providing guidance to staff on best practice dementia care. We have been participating in number of research projects with different universities in assisting the industry to find better ways to “Fight dementia”. Looking after people with dementia has impacted across all our departments; not just direct care but also finance, property services, and human resources.
To understand “what it means to have dementia”, this year all our leadership teams, including our executive team, will be participating in the virtual dementia experience at Alzheimer’s Australia. There are a number of projects across our programs to improve services for people with dementia. We have just completed a major project to enhance the outdoor environment for residents with dementia at Vasey Brighton East. The new Castlefield courtyard will provide significant opportunities for residents to spend more time outside, to do some gardening and partake in other outdoor activities.
Vasey RSL Care’s fifth Master Chef Competition “Birthday cake for the Queen” was once again a great success, and I am sure Queen Elizabeth would be very proud of the cakes created on the day. Congratulation to the winners, the Vasey House team and thank you to our exceptional hosts at RSL Park, and to our very special guest judge Wendy Charlton, President of the War Widow’s Guild Victoria.
Our annual prudential meetings have been scheduled for October and November across our independent living units and residential sites. For the first time we will run some combined meetings at some of our sites as we are all part of one organisation. I look forward to meeting with you and your families to present our annual performance report and be available for discussions.
Janna Voloshin
Chief Executive Officer