Swinburne University: Digital Story Project

Living with dementia is a challenging, isolating, and confusing experience. People living with dementia and their carers struggle because it is very difficult to navigate a complicated care system and complex disease. Caladenia’s project partner, My Dementia Companion (MyDC) has created the world’s first smart dementia assistant for families, which completed a successful pilot and won Dementia Australia and Department of Health’s Decoding Dementia Innovation Challenge. Based on the success and leveraging the innovative technology of the family version, Caladenia is collaborating with MyDC to create the world’s first digital dementia assistant for care professionals. This tool will help all professionals to support families more easily, help us to better align to Aged Care Quality Standards and Aged Care Royal Commission Recommendations, and ultimately improve care outcomes.

WomenCan Australia assist women to become work ready. They support women who are disconnected from the work force and seek to return. Reasons for disconnection include carer responsibilities, recent migration, chronic illness, and stale skills. In addition, is a loss of confidence. Re-engagement with the workforce is difficult for women if undertaken alone. The WomenCan communities of women are helped to confidently transition back into the paid workforce with a recognised vocational qualification. The organisation facilitates their transition using a peer support model which create a sense of belonging. The grant from the Arcare Family Foundation is helping WomenCan to test their model by offering participation in a Certificate III in Individual Support (Aged Care) at two metropolitan based and two regionally based TAFE.

IRE is a minimally invasive surgical technique used in the treatment of prostate cancer. It uses an electrical current delivered with precision to the previously diagnosed cancerous area to destroy cell membranes causing cell death and destruction of the cancerous tissue. Early results have shown extremely positive cancer control rates in appropriately selected patients with a substantial reduction in side effects and maintains the opportunity to still treat with surgery or radiation therapy in the uncommon cases where it has not been successful.

More than ten years ago, a group of local community members (now known as Romsey Ecotherapy Park Inc – REP) came together with a vision to transform a derelict historic school site into a regionally significant special place to enhance health and wellness in nature for all ages and all abilities. The Sensory Therapeutic Space (featuring sensory gardens, permanent art installations including kinetic and sound sculpture elements, ephemeral billabong, sand play and a water feature) will be a valuable nature-based resource for the elderly, those recovering from illness or those merely wanting respite from daily life. Chimes have a special place in garden design, one that is deeply felt in Asian cultures. The Harmonic Bell Tree brings this healing experience to Romsey. The 1.6m tall Harmonic Bell Tree features three parabolic harmonic bells in golden bronze standing one above the other on a galvanized steel post like a strangely beautiful abstract tree.

The Arcare team have watched the growing COVID-19 situation around the world with deep concern and sadness. As a response the Arcare Family Foundation were pleased to contribute $50,000 to Oxfam’s COVID Emergency Appeal for India. We hope our donation helps save lives as that community strives to overcome this significant threat. As India and the region grapples with a deadly second wave of coronavirus, Oxfam teams are on the ground saving lives by providing vital medical supplies, handwashing stations, cash transfers and food rations. Oxfam is responding to the crisis, distributing emergency supplies across the nation’s worst-affected states: Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala in addition to others.

This grant will provide Yellowbridge with the capacity to create high-impact, practical infection control and PPE training for the disability and aged care workforce using Enabler’s serious games and simulation training platform, to address the shortcomings of existing training. Unlike the existing PPE and infection control e-learning available, the training developed will be tailored to the disability and aged care workforce, provide opportunity for workers to practice applying theoretical knowledge and increase memory retention, engagement and understanding through repetition and gamified learning. The project will deliver the training via a mobile app, ensuring workers can quickly skill up and gain confidence in the use of PPE and preventing the spread of infection remotely and conveniently. https://yellowbridgeqld.com.au https://www.enablerinteractive.com/

In 2020 the Arcare Family Foundation supported Australia’s first National Telehealth Counselling and Support Service for residential aged care communities. Due to COVID-19, there was an immediate demand for a telehealth service and a greater need for more creative mental health care delivery models for residential aged care. The primary goal of the telehealth service is to provide and evaluate a free, accessible, scalable and useful mental health service to individuals living in residential aged care facilities, their families and residential aged care staff, using the telephone or video-conferencing. This service is free for adults living in residential aged care facilities , and it is designed to help them cope with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and stress, all of which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions. This service is also available to the residents’ families and aged care staff. This service will be provided by postgraduate psychology, social work, and counselling students from around Australia under the supervision of experienced practitioners. The National Telehealth Counselling and Support service has the potential to create hundreds of placement opportunities for postgraduate students from universities across Australia, educating the next generation of clinicians. Placements that focus on mental health in late life are rare in Australia. For more information on this service or to access the service or refer someone else – please go to: https://www.swinburne.edu.au/lss/psychology/pc/older-adults/telehealth-counselling.html

Donation to support COVID 19 Response ($50,000) The Arcare Family Foundation provided a grant of $50,000 to Northern Health to support its response to COVID-19. The Northern Health services area has been hard hit by the pandemic, in particular Northern Hospital in Epping where many patients have been hospitalised. In receiving the grant Andrew Williamson, Executive Director Public Affairs said, “On behalf of Northern Health, I would like to thank the Arcare Family Foundation for its donation to Northern Hospital Epping to support us in providing the best possible care for our COVID-19 patients and the Northern community.” The grant was made on Friday August 7th as Arcare, and other aged care providers across the country, celebrated Aged Care Employee Day. The Arcare Family Foundation Committee provided the grant on Aged Care Employee Day as recognition for the amazing efforts of Arcare team members during this difficult time, as well as the fantastic staff at Northern Health who are dealing with a significant proportion of Victoria’s COVID 19 patients. www.nh.org.au

Support for Asylum Seekers during the COVID-19 crisis (Grant: $20,000) The Asylum Seekers Centre is based in Newtown in Sydney and they provide practical and personal support for people living in the community who are seeking asylum. The Asylum Seekers Centre provides the following: Connects people to support and services: Their services include accommodation, legal advice, financial relief, health care, employment assistance, education, food, material aid and recreational activities. Engages community: The ASC builds and harnesses the good will in the community towards people seeking asylum. They create opportunities for people to provide practical support as well as to advocate for political change. Influences policy and legal change: They draw on the direct daily experience of people seeking asylum to develop and promote campaigns to improve public laws and policies, working with other services to bring about needed change. This grant will support the Centre to provide aid to Asylum Seekers at this time. asylumseekerscentre.org.au