News and views from our community
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Personal Alert Victoria | Enhancing safety and independence
Personal Alert Victoria (PAV) offers eligible Victorians a free personal monitoring and emergency response service. This important service is funded by the Victorian Government and helps people continue to live independently at home, safe in the knowledge that help is only a button press away.If you or someone you know is frail, elderly and isolated or who is living with a disability, you may like to consider applying for the PAV program.What does the PAV service involve?The PAV service responds to calls for assistance 24 hours per day.Clients wear a pendant around their neck or wrist which is designed with a button that, when pressed, dials the PAV hotline connecting the caller with trained staff ready to provide assistance. For example, if you fall or suddenly feel unwell, you can press the button and be connected with someone who can speak with you through the pendant.PAV hotline staff will talk with you to determine whether a call should be placed with emergency services, one of your nominated contacts (usually family members, friends or neighbours) or whether you simply require some reassurance about your situation (in the event of a non-urgent issue).How does my pendant connect me to the PAV hotline?A receiver unit sits next to your telephone and is plugged into your telephone line. When it receives an alert from your pendant (after you have pressed the button), the receiver unit automatically dials the PAV hotline.Who is eligible for the PAV service?Eligibility is determined via an assessment conducted in your own home.There are two sets of eligibility criteria to meet – Part A and Part B:Part A:You must meet all three conditions set out below –Daily monitoring – you consent to daily monitoring.Wearable pendant - you are capable of using and willing to wear the PAV pendant at all times.Living situation – you live alone OR are alone for most of the day or evening OR live with a person who would be unable to get to the phone in an emergency (or is unable to use the phone).Part B:You must meet two of these criteria –You have had at least one fall that needed medical attention in the previous six months or be at risk of falls.You suffer from a major medical or chronic condition that puts you at risk of medical emergencies or has some ongoing effect on your health or wellbeing.You are taking six or more different medications on a permanent basis that are prescribed by your doctor / medical specialist.Who conducts my eligibility assessment for PAV?Eligibility assessments for the PAV service are usually conducted by your local council, community health service, aged care assessment service, district nursing service and some publicly funded community rehabilitation services.You can either contact your local service provider directly (for example, by enquiring with your local council’s aged care program) or be referred to an assessment service by your doctor or local community health service.It’s worth noting that there may be a waiting period involved until a PAV unit becomes available for installation at your home.For more detailed information on the PAV program, please refer to the PAV program and service guidelines provided by the Victorian Department of Health.
- 29 Jul 2024
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Student Placement Program
Baptcare offer students placements or work experience opportunities to help them determine if a student placement with Baptcare is right for them. As part of student placement and work experience opportunities, students work alongside our experienced, supportive teams gaining practical experience under the expert guidance of industry trainers. They gain work experience hours of up to 13 hours per week and at the end of their placement, they receive a certificate recognising the total hours done and a list of work skills gained during their time at Baptcare. Baptcare Talent Programs currently support placements across the organisation including Residential Aged Care, Home Care, Day Care, Allied Health, Family and Community Services, Kitchen, Lifestyle, IT and Nursing.
- 11 Jul 2024
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What happens in Mens Sheds?
Men’s Sheds play a crucial role in improving men’s health and wellbeing. They are a well spring of camaraderie, creativity and support. Drawing on the iconic Australian backyard image of the garden shed, these community-based organisations are a hub of activity and support where men can feel included and supported.
- 02 Jul 2024
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Faces of Baptcare | Meet Durham Smith
Meet Durham Smith. At 102 years of age, Durham is a long time (and much-loved) resident at Baptcare Hedley Sutton Retirement Living. As is often the case with highly accomplished and impressive people, Durham humbly deflects all personal attention. So, in this article, we won’t focus on his life story (including his AO).
- 27 Jun 2024
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Enjoying the comforts of home: Lynette and George
Lynette is 75 and her husband, George, is 70. With a little help from home care, they're able to live healthily and happily together at home.
- 21 Jun 2024
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Keeping your loved one safe | When should an older person stop driving?
While there’s no fixed age when everyone should stop driving in Australia, it’s true that as we grow older, our abilities can change, including our ability to drive safely.
- 14 Jun 2024
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Baby G’s story by Karishma Bakshi
Meet Baby G, a brave little one who recently joined our Foster Care program. Born with a low birth weight, Baby G faced unique challenges from the very start.
- 12 Jun 2024
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Meet Alicia Johnston
Tell us a bit about your role and what you do day to day at BaptcareI’m a Practice and Development Consultant (PDC) in the Tasmanian Family Services team.My role is a part of the senior leadership team made up of 11 standard members and sometimes senior practitioners will come along too. The PDC role looks to embed best practice around trauma-informed support for children, young people and families through continuous improvement and education, practice reflection and complex case consultation.I like that I get to work in a real team. It’s a great collective of people who work together to see what they need to do as a leadership team to support each other and the staff.There’s lots of value in the group in terms of different experiences as the members come from different areas and even different states, so there’s a real breadth of experience.The team vibe is really strong.In terms of a standard day, I probably spend about 30% of my day in meetings, a percentage in learning and development working on current best practices and/or developing workshops on such topics as care planning, and spending time reviewing files to support staff with complex families through practice reflection.What was your career background?My background is psychology, but I sort of fell into child safety/human services after moving to Broome, Western Australia where I was working in hospitality, and finishing my degree.I worked in child safety and family violence in Broome, where I lived for eight years. But I was born in Tasmania and moved back to Tasmania (where I worked in child safety) to be closer to family when my daughter was two years old.I worked in the Baptcare office as a community-based team leader for five years before moving to a job in clinical practice as a Practice Manager at Child Safety Service Tas Govt. I also worked as a Practice Manager at the youth detention centre.What do you like about your job?I like being able to look at the situation for families in a different light and to consider things with a trauma informed lens.What do you like about Baptcare?I like the feel at Baptcare.Part of my role is supporting practitioners and this can be creative. I get to work with some knowledgeable practitioners who are genuinely dedicated to the families they work with and I find this inspiring.It’s a give and take space that is welcoming and familial.I also really like the smaller office space because it’s neighbourly and you can get to know most people.Baptcare has a culture of maintaining their values and working towards them.It’s an honest place and it’s a safe place to learn and fail where people are willing to take a considered risk which often comes up with a positive outcome. I appreciate this ‘it’s safe to fail’ environment.Your work must get intense at times. How do you decompress?I think I have a natural resilience because I had a supportive upbringing where I could develop this strength without even realising it. When I started in the area, I had great mentors to explain why we do what we do. This helped me being able to come up with my own strategies that work for me. If I get really stressed, I play a Pixar movie in my head and that helps to stop me looping and gets me to sleep!Any other tips for dealing with the intensities of work in the caring space?I think it’s important to accept that things can affect you more than you thought and honouring that.It also helps to have trusted people around you.If I have a bad day, I’ll just give my hubby a hug and he knows it has been a tough day.It’s important to recognise that what we do is tough and that it’s ok not to be ok.Self-care is so important because if you’re not ok you can’t help others to be ok.What did you want to be when you were a child?I wanted to be a doctor but I’m not sure exactly why. Perhaps because I liked helping people and I saw doctors as helping people. I was pretty serious about this dream at one stage. I even sat my Medical School Admissions Test (MSAT).Can you tell us two surprising things about yourself?I went tandem bungee jumping with my husband at Kuta beach in Bail in Kuta. It was so exciting!Party trick – I can do the splits because my daughter is a dancer and was having trouble doing splits, so we had a bet. Whoever did them first would get either coffee and a massage for me, or my daughter would get $20 into her bank account – I won!Ed – an added fun fact about Alicia is that she plays football. Apart from a recent injury, Alicia is a huge fan of her new sport.Tell us about your football ‘career’I play football for St Patrick's Old Collegians in the NTFAW (Northern Tasmanian Football Association Women) Division 1. It is the first year I have played, and the first year St Pats has had a women's team in the competition.I just decided I wanted to give it a try and had a friend playing who encouraged me to come along. I absolutely love it, learning to play, the positive team and club culture, and socialising with new people. The collar bone isn't ideal, but it means I can focus on coaching my netball team (instead of being a coach/player) and I look forward to getting back to training and rebuilding my strength.Ideal weekendI’d spend time with family. I really like the warmth and water/beaches, so I’d go somewhere tropical where I could have the kids entertained for a bit.I love the East coast – Binalong Bay/Scamander, gorgeous seafood.What’s your life motto? I do believe in the idea of karma – if you do good things they’ll come back to you. I really believe that it’s important to do the right thing and the kind thing because you never know what’s going on in someone’s world and how your actions can impact them that day.You can learn more about Baptcare’s work in Tasmania’s Family Services space on our website.
- 24 May 2024
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In honour of this week’s International Day of Families, meet Kelsey from our Tasmanian Family Services Team
Let’s start with some facts! How long have you worked at Baptcare, what is your current role and what does it involve day to day?I’ve worked at Baptcare for three and a half years. I’ve got two titles: I’m a Family Services Practitioner in the Integrated Family Support team and I’m also the Project officer of Mothers in Mind and Caring Dads groups.What’s involved in these groups?Mothers in Mind is a therapeutic playgroup. Caring Dads is a group working alongside Dads who have used abuse and violence in their parenting environments.Both groups are specific to Tasmania. What’s special about these groups? Starting with the Mothers in Mind group – the best thing we see is that it fosters a connection between mothers and their children who often join the group from a background of trauma. For example, they may have experienced (or are experiencing) mental health issues and/or family violence. It is so wonderful to see the mothers and their children actually feeling safe enough to play by the end of a session with us. It’s a safe space where we do work in small groups so as not to intimidate our participants. We start by modelling positive parenting behaviour and quickly see them mirroring our lead.Part of my role is as a Family Services Practitioner, where I am currently supporting seven families. I visit the families once a week in their homes to build parenting capacity and/or perhaps assist in reengaging the parents and children with school. I work with the families once a week over a 12-month period.We provide mentoring and advocacy work, while also assisting them to identify their family goals and how we can best achieve them.Caring Dads is a17-week group program in which participants can either be referred to us by an external agency like Child Safety or a legal service, internally if they are accessing the Integrated Family Support Service, or they can independently seek out our group. Baptcare deliver content that teaches the Dads how to interrupt their normal thought patterns and implement different ones, and parenting strategies that will support them to experience more positive outcomes and better connection with their children.One of the most positive parts of Caring Dads is witnessing our Dads having realisations that they weren’t making great decisions in their past parenting and within their relationships, and that they can change their behaviour and make decisions that are different and positive, which can increase family safety.What drew you to working in this Family Services space? I did a Social Work degree at the University of Tasmania and during my fourth year, I did a 14-week online placement (during COVID) with the Intensive Family Support Service (IFSS) Team at Baptcare and then was subsequently offered a job with them a few months after graduation.I always wanted to work with people and young people and now I can work with parents and kids at the same time which is ideal! There’s such an important connection with these two groups of people too, as many issues with children start from parenting issues. Therefore, if we can support parents with skills early, hopefully we can break the negative cycles we see.And why Baptcare? What keeps you working at Baptcare? After spending 14 weeks doing my university placement with Baptcare, I knew it was the right place for me.Baptcare has a great culture. It’s really welcoming and an environment where it’s easy to have a joke and a laugh but can still be serious and supportive when needed. Everyone really wants each other to do well and that’s a great culture to be a part of. What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you always want to work within the caring space and what are some other jobs you’ve performed in your career? From the age of 14 I knew that I wanted to be a social worker and that I wanted to help people.I was very lucky growing up with supportive parents and a good school but I knew there were many people around me who didn’t get those opportunities. I guess my home life was based in caring. My Mum has been working as a nurse for over 35 years and my Dad has a teaching background.I started volunteering at Edmund Rice camps* during school holidays. These camps ran programs for kids who may not have the opportunity to have those experiences.(*Ed. Edmund Rice’s mission is: We create a world where children and families who have experienced trauma and adversity can thrive and belong.)I volunteered at about 30 programs over five years. Now I get to send children who I’m currently working alongside to be participants in their camps and to have those positive experiences too which is very cool.Can you tell us two surprising things about yourself? One - I know lots of random pieces of information that are completely useless. For example, kangaroos can’t move backwards.Two – From the ages of eight to eighteen, I grew up on an alpaca farm in Relbia where we had 60 alpacas. I was a Champion Junior Alpaca Handler in local competitions, including at the Wynyard Agricultural Show, the Royal Launceston Show and the Burnie Show. Describe your ideal weekendTime spent in the garden in the sun.Going to the beach.Watching the footy (my partner plays state league footy so footy consumes a lot of our life!). How would your friends describe you? That I’m not very good at saying no and will offer to help out even if I haven’t got the time!If you could sit next to someone at a dinner party, who would it be and why? My Grandma who has passed away. She was a small (4 ft 11) but stoic woman and she’s where I get my random love of trivia!She was a big reader and very smart. My Grandma and Grandad actually ran trivia nights for North East community events in Tassie. Can you share a particularly special work day/customer interaction you’ve had recently?We recently completed a Mothers in Mind group in term 1 of this year, and all of the mums in attendance were really attentive to their children, the group content and to each other. It was evident that they really wanted to be there. As facilitators, we held the space for them but they really made it their own, sharing reflections and advice with each other. Many of them even made plans to continue their friendships at the conclusion of the program. It was a beautiful group.You can read more about services for families and youth in Tasmania on our website.https://www.baptcare.org.au/services/family-youth-and-foster-care/tasmanian-servicesYou can read more about our Caring Dads program on our website.https://www.baptcare.org.au/why-baptcare/news/baptcare-introduces-caring-dads-program-this-october
- 16 May 2024
