A little yarn goes a long way
Australian aged care services and organisations are receiving free copies of new support resources which may help organisations have conversations with older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their friends and family about the assistance available to help them resolve concerns about services.
New support resources to help organisations have conversations with older indigenous Australians.
The resources include a flip chart, brochure and fact sheet, with translated content in Torres Strait Islander Creole, Arrernte, Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri, Alyawarra and Luritja.
Jenna Aziz, WA's Advocare marketing and community engagement coordinator, says the resources would help promote older people’s rights and provide one of the places people can go to access help about concerns.
“We want more older people and their friends and families to know that it’s okay to talk about these problems,” Ms Aziz says.
“We want them to know that there’s someone out there who will listen to them if their service provider is not responding to their concerns.”
She claims the support materials will help explain to remote community members how they can resolve concerns if they’re worried about their quality of care and how the Aged Care Complaints Scheme can help them.
“Our older people deserve to be treated well, and they should be supported to speak up if there’s a problem with the way they’re being treated by a service provider, their health, their safety, how clean things are, or the food they’re getting.”
Helen Robertson, an aged care specialist at Wirraka Maya Health Service Aboriginal Corporation in South Hedland WA, agrees that it may sometimes seem hard to talk about how an older family member or friend is being cared for.
“But talking about the things you’re worried about is the best way to improve the care older people receive,” Ms Robertson says.
“Talking about a problem shouldn’t cause more problems. If you talk about a problem, the service provider can try to make things better.”
More than 600 aged care organisations have already received copies of the new communications tools.
Aged care organisations wanting to order copies of these resources can email Ian Watson at ian@26letters.com.au.
