What is the Better Practice Project?

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What is the Better Practice Project?

The Better Practice Project, funded by Home and Community Care, works with a large range of agencies throughout South Australia across the sectors of aged care, disability, mental health, vulnerable adults and ethnic community services

The Project provides support, information, training, resource development, mentoring and consultation around the review and development of service models, in partnership with these agencies.

It articulates a service model that enhances the citizenship, roles and life strengths of the Home and Community Care target groups.

This Project is available as a resource to agencies. It is not about prescriptive solutions but is about responding to the needs of agencies at whatever level they are defined.

The Project has an extensive history and has gained many testimonials since its inception in 1997.

The Project has developed a large range of resources which are available by contacting the Project team.

The Project is auspiced by Aged & Community Services SA&NT and supported by an Advisory Group that is representative of a wide range of agencies.

Our Key Goal

The key goal for the Project is to ensure that people remain central to the essence of the work that the Project is doing in partnership with agencies.

The Project therefore wants to engage with others who have shown an understanding of and commitment to the values that underpin it.

The Project is looking for ways to be a more useful and available resource for managers and staff as they grapple with the tension between keeping a focus on people and the many other demands that overtake their time and attention.

Contact Details

	246 Glen Osmond Road, Fullarton. S.A. 5063
Postal:	246 Glen Osmond Rd, Fullarton. SA 5063
Phone:	(08) 8338 7111
Fax:	(08) 8338 7077
Mobile:	0417 873 105
Email:	bpproject@agedcommunity.asn.au

Click on staff members name to Email

Project Manager	Joyleen Thomas
Project Co-ordinator	Lyn Zeidler
Project Support Officer	Vicky Heuritsch

History of the Better Practice Project

Stage 1

The Better Practice Project started in 1997 when the ACH Group received Home and Community Care funding to develop and articulate a model of service that would enhance the citizenship and positive roles of older people. The report from this stage, A Unique Life to Live, identifies the values and assumptions that guided the project, and the key service principles and practices that increase the likelihood of older frail people participating in the community as valued citizens. Important features included a life strengths approach, developing existing community and unpaid solutions to meeting needs, and the development of collaborative solutions across agency boundaries.

The Project explored what is possible when staff set out to examine their work in detail, to open themselves up to learning from older people, to self-critique and continually search for more potent ways to support older people to be valued members of their community

Stages 2 & 3

Two further stages of the Project were funded to encourage other agencies to consider the Project's learning which has proved transferable to a broad range of agencies and to provide support and mentoring to implement the model.

Activities included:

Training, information and resource development.
Workshops for HACC Managers in South Australia and interstate.
Partnership with agencies in new projects.
Presentations at conferences and seminars.
Working with rural and metropolitan agencies in the sectors of aged care, disability, vulnerable adults and ethnic community services.
Working with agencies to develop funding proposals for new projects, establishing objectives and developing staff training.

Stage 4:

Better Practice and Beyond: Valuing People

This stage of the Project saw a move to Aged & Community Services as a more central auspice to increase the Project's accessibility and visibility. The goals and actions of this stage include:

Build broader awareness of the Project.
Involve providers from a wide range of agencies who understand the essence of the Project and want to improve outcomes for service users.
Influence new workers in the sector.
'Value add' to agencies as they work through the HACC Standards and implement their action plans.
Promote forums where values issues can be discussed, at all levels of service provision.
Provide a range of resource material that will support agencies to provide people-centred practice.
Develop a competency based training package in conjunction with TAFE.
Develop a handbook on practical implications of the model of service for service providers.
Facilitate workshops at the National ACS conference in October 2004.
Promote the writing of articles for publications and resource materials including the sharing of people's real life experiences.
Foster leadership amongst providers, regulators, educators and the general community in the Project principles.
Build the capacity of people to understand and implement the ideas and theory underpinning the Project.
Facilitate and test the adoption of the theory in other and new service settings.

The themes of the many consultations, training events, presentations and resource developments continue to maintain a focus on:

The people in the face of relentless external pressures and constraints.
Understanding the person and their life experiences.
The impact of services, societal assumptions and stereotyping versus positive ageing.
Appropriate assessment practices.
The right response to needs.
The importance of people's roles and contributions.
The importance of family and community.
The right relationship between provider and client.
Building on people's strengths.
Citizenship versus clienthood.

Stage 5:

Current Developments

The most recent stage of the Project has seen it 'come of age'. The acquired learning and experience of key team members, its Advisory Group and supporters from many arenas has culminated in the production and successful trial of the training package Living as an Older Person. From this initialive a Train the Trainer package was developed to enable participants to deliver the training to their own staff. The Train the Trainerseminars have now been delivered in all eleven HACC regions across South Australia, with some people waiting for more opportunities to do it. These, on the whole, have been well received. For information on the resources please contact the Project Team.

Working in Partnership- a Sample

This is an outline of one of the roles the Project has played. It met with three agencies which were working collaboratively to apply for funding and to establish a service. A forum of older people who were on waiting lists for a service was conducted to discover their needs and their expectations of a service. The Better Practice Project was then invited to join in the planning processes of these three agencies to establish the right response. The following ensued:

Identification of what the older people really wanted from a service.
Planning and design of the service with the emphasis on the people playing a crucial role in the planning and delivery of their own care.
Identification that workers needed to be equipped.
Specific training was planned and prepared around enhancing the citizenship, roles and life strengths of vulnerable people and recognising the significance of the role and right relationship of workers.
Two successive series of interactive, experiential workshops were conducted.
Leadership roles were identified.
Feedback from the workshops facilitated ongoing development of materials.
An invitation to develop coordinator training was made.
Evaluation of this service is planned to assess that value of the learning on the outcomes for the people.

This reflects one of the ways in which the Project can be a resource, but is in no way prescriptive. The Project is guided by the service with a strong emphasis on partnership.

Snippets following Workshops

A worker writes: "After yesterday's session I felt very confident and capable of handling a situation that arose today. It was a real turning point in my work and personal relationship. Mr & Mrs J. and their daughter and I all sat down together to discuss and reach an amicable strategy. for more assistance within their home environment. As we sat and talked together I was ever mindful of yesterday's session and what my role is. I like to believe I dealt with this changing and challenging time for them with the respect they deserve."

Another worker writes: "When is a service a disservice? After attending the Better Practice lectures I've been thinking more about the clients..it is important to let them remain as independent as possible. Keeping in mind that every little thing we do for them affects their lives in some way. Too often we hear the comments "I'm useless", "I'm a waste of space", "There is no point in living". I feel that if we give more service than is necessary then the client can easily feel useless. I think it is important to keep their choices as wide as possible."

This worker was able to implement some changes to help her clients maintain some of their valued roles and has also made herself available to contribute her perspective at TAFE workshops and conferences.

A rural worker emailed a personal story about role development that fitted with the model explicated. The worker's grandson insisted on defining his "job" as a kindergarten pupil. She writes: "I spent some time thinking about the enormity of a child needing to define himself with a role. It is no wonder that as we age, we hold onto our roles like castaways clinging to a life raft." She has written another story on the importance of home in people's lives.

Another worker wrote: "It has helped me to change the centre of my work from me to the difference it makes in the doing for people as well as myself."