Becoming leaders in aged care
Leading Age Services Australia Chair, General Peter Cosgrove, believes we must remind ourselves of the wonderful things older Australians have achieved and contributed to society. General Cosgrove spoke to DPS News following his presentation at Aged & Community Care Victoria’s State Congress & Exhibition last week.
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Leading Age Services Australia Chair, General Peter Cosgrove, believes we must remind ourselves of the wonderful things older Australians have achieved and contributed to society.
General Cosgrove spoke to DPS News following his presentation at Aged & Community Care Victoria’s State Congress & Exhibition last Thursday (21 June 2012).
He discussed the challenges of being a leader in Australia and on the attributes needed to bring groups together to work effectively and lead to new understandings.
“Delegates at the conference have a responsibility in aged care and that automatically makes them leaders. They have the responsibility to nurture and look after human beings and to meet integrity and courage a streak of compassion and humility,” he said.
According to General Cosgrove, we are not only looking after people who are becoming old and weak, but people whom we should “extend respect and great honour”.
He described aged care workers as a team with a “spark of genius in them”.
“In every team, that genius often creates new understandings and seeks new experiences. The aim of Leading Age Services Australia is to deliver the world’s best care to aged Australians, with a constant quest for improvement.
“We know everybody readily accepts Australia’s demography is evolving and more and more elderly Australians are living longer.
“As the population grows, it means the number of people part of aged care will grow, so it is becoming an ever more important part of our social and economic fabric that we become more important to government and individual Australians who want to know their elderly mums and dads can live in good hands.”
