Regional Australia needs aged care roles filled – Australian Catholic University set to deliver 4000 more home care staff to critical remote regions

Providers had already been doing it tough to find enough trained and passionate aged care staff to deliver services in regional and remote Australia. With the continuing fallout from the Support at Home scheme, providers, advocates and seniors are more worried than ever that home care, particularly outside of metropolitan areas, will slip even further behind need. And the numbers are in, seniors stranded in the healthcare system ballooned by 30 per cent over the summer. With reports that 3,100 older people are languishing in hospital when they simply should not be there, experts highlight this is a clear indication that they are not receiving the adequate care they need. Aged care advocates say that accessible care has the power to prevent seniors from presenting early to hospital, and supporting them to live alone after being discharged could have a powerful impact. In addition to the Support at Home shambles that is showing growing resistance, experts say Australia needs to tackle its aged care worker shortage head on, now. Australian Catholic University (ACU) has done exactly that, with an extra 4000 personal care workers to be delivered over the next three years, specifically to areas dubbed “aged care deserts”.

Workforce program

Organisers, academics and clinical staff at ACU felt a professional, moral and profoundly human response to the rising gap of skilled staff to meet the care needs of Australia’s ageing population.

Seniors in regional Australia are increasingly contemplating needing to leave their cherished small towns for larger ones due to under staffing challenges for regional home care providers. Understaffing in home care has also had an impact on rural healthcare networks as regional hospitals come under growing strain, with many seniors stranded due to difficulty accessing timely home care.

From this desire to rise up and directly do something about the looming crises, the team at ACU decided to step up and join the Regional, Rural and Remote Home Care Workforce Support Program. The program, a new federally funded initiative attempting to turn the tide of care work in regional areas, is a lift that seeks to address the acknowledged critical shortages in Australia’s further flung areas of aged care.

But as providers and front-line staff of regional care work have shared, the work is only growing in regional areas. There is rising need to not only provide care for seniors but also to prevent extreme burnout for the care staff that have been showing up daily to, as some put it, “give all of themselves” to keep delivering quality care.

It is for both these groups, the seniors who desperately need care, and the selfless care staff that have been doing the incredible with very little, that ACU’s regional workforce support program have stepped up to the plate.

Key objectives

ACU has laid out key objectives for the program, endeavouring through transparency and partnership to work towards a strengthened aged care worker base. In clearly announcing objectives, as well as sharing the nuances of each, advocates and seniors are encouraged to see a thoughtfulness to the program.

Regional seniors across the country have noted that their community has always been profoundly important to them, and that doesn’t change when needing home or residential aged care. To find skilled staff from their own community to come into their homes has long been a call for these seniors as they wrestle with a changing lifestyle and needing support.

This exact strategy of skilled staff, drawn from the local community is one of the initiative’s key aims. The ACU shares that it will, “attract and retain local talent by creating meaningful, community-based employment pathways into the home care sector.”

In seeking to strengthen all of the worker base, the initiative too has its sights on encouraging and uplifting current staff, particularly those who have felt stretched and burnout, the university says it will, “upskill and empower both new and existing personal care workers through accessible, high-quality training tailored to local contexts.”

And directly tackling criticisms of lack of support for aged care staff, that experts say has resulted in high turnovers for the sector, the program looks to build up strong leadership and mentoring opportunities. These opportunities, far from dry corporate manuals, are to be entrenched in local environments for meaningful career growth and impact.

The program overtly will seek to, “build leadership and mentoring capacity within the workforce to support career development and foster a culture of support, growth, and retention.”

Strengthening

For those behind the decision to enter into supporting and running the program, the goal is not simply to train workers but to provide specialised training that will see Australia’s aged care workforce powerfully strengthened across the nation.

The university is seeking to support the Skills Generation/Skills Hub to result in a program of partnership that will work for all parties, for providers, seniors, staff and families. Particularly when it comes to working in regional Australia, the program is seeking to set up front-line staff with training that will support their impact in these areas with cultural and relational nuances.

ACU’s Professor of Healthy Ageing, Laurie Buys, has shared a key understanding of what sincere providers have been battling. Regional, rural and remote organisations have been struggling for years to encourage and retain the skilled staff required to feasibly meet increasing demand for home care services.

Part of the commitment the university and program’s directors have confirmed is that over the next three years, as the additional 4000 personal care workers are trained and recruited, underpinning this vision is meeting a crisis. Aged care services in regional Australia, they affirm, need vital support as they face the most intense of acute workforce obstacles and challenges.

Professor Buys notes, “ageing in place is only possible when communities have a committed and skilled workforce.”

“Through our collaboration with Skills Generation/Skills Hub, ACU is dedicated to supporting communities to build that capacity so older Australians can live well and stay where they belong.”

For the many providers and advocates who have spent decades rallying to provide care in Australia’s “aged care deserts” the aim is not to simply survive, they are fighting for seniors and staff to live and work well, to thrive where they belong. This is a key driving factor for ACU as they seek to raise up passionate and skilled new staff for these regions.

Only the beginning

For those that have been watching ACU’s involvement in building up new aged care staff, the additional 4000 new home care workers is hopeful not just in and of itself but because it is part of a trend.

The prior Home Care Workforce Support Program was able to attract 13,000 new personal care workers to the aged care sector over three years for placement across the country. The initiatives are working and those involved are keen to keep pursuing them.

Professor Buys shares that ACU is passionate to maintain contributing expert oversight in teaching, training and workforce development for such a critical need in the country. She shares that they are especially passionate to maintain the pursuit of locally fueled solutions for Australians that strengthen the home care workforce in areas doing it tough.

“Our role in this program is not only to build skills, but to help communities grow their own capacity to care, ensuring older Australians can age well, in place, supported by a sustainable and community-rooted workforce”.