Service providers wanted for co-production trial

The innovative project for the Aged Care sector Step Forward: Create Better Together encourages organisations to become leaders in consumer-focused aged care and work together with consumers to create better services.

‘Co-production’ is a new way of working with consumers of aged care services to co-design service delivery. The service provider organisation works with consumers as equal partners in the design process. This process ensures the service offered is relevant to the consumer and meets their needs rather than taking a second-guess approach.

CommunityWest’s Step Forward: Create Better Together project is designed to help the aged care sector move beyond consulting to co-producing. The project will support organisations and consumers to work together to innovate, solve problems, or improve services with a wellness and enablement focus. The project will extend beyond consumer interaction to working with consumers as partners at an organisational level.

CommunityWest has been funded by Department of Social Services to implement a two-stage project that includes a pilot to explore a framework for wellness and enablement and developing resources for consumers, carers and organisations, such as peer education, communities of practice and online resources.

The Step Forward: Create Better Together project is among the 64 projects to share $34 million in the latest round of Aged Care Service Improvement and Healthy Ageing Grants funded by the Australian Department of Social Services. This project is funded until June 2017.

Helen Attrill, CEO of CommunityWest says, “This project builds on current government reforms within the aged care sector, such as consumer directed care, and providing services with a wellness and enablement focus, to meet the changing expectations of older Australians.”

“We’re really pleased the Department of Social Services has chosen to fund this pilot project to encourage organisations to genuinely work with consumers in the design of services,” she says.

Interested organisations passionate about consumer-focused services wanting to be part of this ground-breaking trial should contact CommunityWest now.

For further details of the benefits of being involved, including a small grant towards costs, contact Kelly Gray, Project Consultant on (08) 9309 8135 or email kelly.gray@communitywest.com.au