Practical and possible steps matter –  free webinars to support residential aged care to feel like home

The importance of feeling at home where you live doesn’t change with age. For the many professionals who show up day after day, from CEOs to school-work experience teens, facilities being first and foremost homes is honoured. Countless staff have shared that they feel called to go above and beyond compliance to support seniors when they move into residential aged care. Studies back this, one of the most important aspects when helping seniors transition into aged care is supporting their new space to be personal, safe and comforting. But for many seniors, family members and staff, knowing where to start, how to innovate with the resources at hand and how to make change can be a daunting challenge. Dementia Training Australia, in collaboration with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, have created a free national eight-part series designed to answer just that.

Made from experience

Those behind the Home Matters: Environments webinar at Dementia Training Australia (DTA) get it. The team that created the webinar series didn’t do so from a distance but from lived experience within the sector. Bringing together experts with decades of experience was important, as was including industry leaders. It is just as vital to hear perspectives from lived experience representatives to ensure we are addressing what matters to them.

The environment people live in directly impacts health, wellbeing, behaviour and quality of life, getting it right for seniors in residential aged care is profoundly important. This is keenly felt by many sincere provider leadership who have worked hard to provide the best with, at times, very limited resources. Through the free webinars the team at DTA seek to provide practical and evidence-based insights into how environments can have a powerful beneficial impact to safeguard independence, identity, dignity and connection. These intentions cannot be lip-service to the thousands of seniors and the staff on the floor, the webinar is about practical tips to creating home-like spaces in residential aged care that are accessible and possible.

Common goal

The webinar is for all members of aged care that are working to ensure the best possible care for seniors. What Home Matters seeks to do is bring together the village to hear, listen and act. The webinar is designed by and for all those that are involved in showing up to do the purpose-filled and vital work of aged care. 

From aged care front-line staff, aged care executives, designers, architects, seniors, loved-ones and carers, Home Matters is to share the realities of lived experience, expert knowledge and practical strategies that can be applied without delay, regardless of role or setting. Everyone has a seat at the table to not only learn but to share the realities of what aged care has been and how changes are possible from every role and vantage point.

Realistic

The webinars have been created to be effective in the here and now, with the resources and opportunities on site. Creating a safe place for seniors should not be out of reach due to prohibitive costs for providers, seniors, loved-ones or staff. What those who have contributed to the webinar are keen to showcase is that good design is not locked away in luxury or large-scale redevelopment. Core to the series are thoughtful and informed choices that can make aged care homes safer, more comfortable and importantly, sustainably supportive places to live and work.

Home Matters is about empowering families, staff and providers to understand the nuances and evidence of environment design, to know what quality environments are and to be encouraged to advocate for spaces that are personal and feel like home.

Compliance and care

Dementia Training Australia has collaborated with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing to bring the theory of the National Aged Care Design Principles and Guidelines into the practical everyday through this webinar series. Theory is only as good as it is realised in daily-life, and that is core to the way Home Matters has been created.

Topics within the series get to the practical point, creating home-like spaces in a way that is possible for seniors, family members and front-line staff. Providing ideas and ways to see them through is central to the series; Improving access to outdoor areas is covered, designing culturally safe environments for people of all backgrounds and importantly, approaching these changes in a way that doesn’t overwhelm seniors or staff within existing buildings and workflows is directly addressed. Change must be possible so that all who live and work within facilities can feel supported and honoured.

Honouring the need for change

Recognising context matters. The webinar and its creators understand that within this time of reform of aged care, there have been immense challenges for seniors, staff and the sector. Providing support means tailored and informed approaches as resources, for even within this change physical environments continue to play a vital role in the quality and safety of seniors and staff. The webinar and its lessons do not side-step the difficulties that many seniors and staff are facing. In some cases, residential aged care settings were not designed to support environments that feel both personal and safe; the topics offer solutions within this reality.

The Home Matters series directly steps into the space of where change is needed, bringing an understanding of the National Aged Care Design Principles and Guidelines and placing it squarely into practical steps. Participants are encouraged to expect to hear from subject matter experts, industry professionals and people with lived experience, to leave with practical ways to make change that can be done without delay or red tape, whether in new builds or existing homes.

The pursuit of quality design for residential aged care environments is not arbitrary to the experts, seniors and leaders who have contributed to the webinar. The approaches are believed and championed. They know and believe, and have crafted the webinar to support, that design makes a difference in people’s lives. Independence is a result, alongside reduced distress, heightened connections and aiding people to maintain personhood and knowing they belong. This is real, acknowledged and honoured.

For all

The webinar is for all those that care to make aged care a place that supports the people at its centre. For seniors going into aged care, for the loved-ones that want their best, for the front-line and executive staff that commit their careers to making aged care safe and joyful, the webinar wants all to feel welcome.

Vital to the functioning of the webinar are topics and solutions rooted in practical possibility, unlike countless design-focused initiatives that are prohibitive to make happen. The Home Matters team has worked to ground the topics, lessons and QnA in lived experience and the reality of the workforce and the sector. As well, to outline changes in progressive steps. Far from out-of-reach ideals or high-cost solves, the webinar series is about bringing policy, evidence and day-to-day practice together. Making change possible for the seniors and staff who are human, invaluable and deserving of thriving where they live and work, is key.

Registering

All sessions are free to attend. If any sessions are missed, each one will be recorded and available on the Environments Hub on the Dementia Training Australia website.

Through clicking on “Register Now” participants will be directed to a registration link for upcoming sessions or recorded videos for those already conducted.