Positive steps forward at Jubilee

Thank you to our clients and their families, employees and volunteers for your messages of support to our office staff for their wonderful work. It is appreciated.

The recruitment of personnel across all departments of Jubilee Community Care has been one of the many priorities during the past several months.

I am extremely pleased to inform you of key appointments including Sharon Forbes (RN) as our Manager for Care Services and Mardy Abeydeera as our Finance Manager. Sharon and Mardy have been joined by new employees in Client Support Coordination, Human Resources and Scheduling. We continue to search to fill the vacant role of Human Resource Manager.

Whilst we have recruited new support workers we are still continuing our search for additional ones.

I would like to acknowledge the tremendous effort of all employees and volunteers at Jubilee who over the past few months have recruited and trained new employees; scheduled services with limited human resources during the recruitment process; brought client billing, budgets and monthly statements up to date; and our wonderful support workers who have provided the highest quality of services to clients. Are we there yet? No, but we are moving in a positive direction and can promise that all employees and volunteers are working together to ensure we meet the needs of Jubilee clients. Thank you to all of our clients and families for your continued support and patience during this process.

Community aged care service providers are facing a continual challenge of ensuring services commence at the scheduled time. There are many issues that challenge the ability of service providers to meet the scheduled start time of a service such as staff shortage, staff sickness/absence, increased traffic congestion and roadworks, and unexpected service challenges that may be encountered by a support worker. I am aware of a move by some service providers to offer a “service window” of a three-hour period during which time a service will commence. Instead, Jubilee Community Care has always asked for and worked with a tolerance of 30+ minutes i.e. in the circumstance of a service commencing more than 30 minutes after the scheduled time our administration staff will telephone and inform the client. There are exceptions in that we will prioritise services that are time critical such as transport services to medical appointments.

Kind regards,
Shaun Riley, Executive Director

Incontinence – it’s not an issue most of us like to talk about but the fact is nearly one in four people aged 85 and over experience severe incontinence.

In the younger age bracket about one in every 14 people aged 65 and over experience it – both the faecal and urinary types.

If you experience accidental or involuntary loss of urine or faeces, however small, it is nothing to be ashamed of and you can seek help.

Some people are at greater risk of developing incontinence because of existing medical conditions including diabetes, chronic heart failure, dementia, Parkinson’s, stroke and mental health.

The Continence Foundation of Australia website offers a wide variety of information about bladder, bowel and pelvic floor health, tips for preventing and managing incontinence, advice for carers and information about support schemes and financial schemes that are available from both the Federal and State governments.

If you need help an appointment with your doctor is a good starting point. Or Jubilee can refer you to a continence service which can undertake an assessment. To prepare for a consultation, write down as much information as possible to help you describe the problem. For example, your symptoms; how often they occur; specific times of the day or night; activities such as exercise, laughing or coughing that seem to bring them on; food or drinks that cause or worsen your symptoms; and a list of your current medications.

There is financial help to offset the costs of continence products such as pads and pants, bed pads, bed sheets and chair pads, and catheters. Jubilee can assist with this. For clients on the Commonwealth Home Support Program your coordinator will organise the Government’s Medical Aids Subsidy Scheme to help offset the costs of purchasing the continence aids. Clients on Home Care Packages can use their package funds to pay for aids with their coordinators ordering the aids on their behalf.

To find out more about incontinence phone your Jubilee Community Care coordinator or visit the Continence Foundation of Australia website at www.continence.org.au. Alternatively, you can phone the National Continence Helpline on 1800 330 066 from 8am-8pm Mondays to Fridays.

Are you considering giving up driving or face the prospect your driving days are over? There is support to help you plan for your driving retirement.

The University of Queensland School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, in partnership with UQ Healthy Living, run a free driving cessation program called CarFreeMe.

The six-week program has been designed to help people plan for eventual driving retirement and is suitable for people still driving, contemplating stopping, or who have recently stopped. CarFreeMe has been designed using evidence-based methods to help older adults and people with health conditions stop driving without limiting their life and freedom.

On completion of the workshop, participants exit with a personalised CarFreeMe Plan, giving them the confidence to take their first steps toward doing what they love, car free.

Other positive outcomes from the program include improved wellbeing, improved ability to negotiate public transportation and, most importantly, improved satisfaction with continuity of life goals and social engagement.

CarFreeMe is facilitated by a qualified/registered occupational therapist and supported by occupational therapy students studying at The University of Queensland.

A new program will commence in the second half of this year although a date is yet to be confirmed. Each of the six two-hour sessions will be at UQ Healthy Living in Toowong.

If you are interested, please contact UQ Healthy Living on 3443 2586 or email uqhealthyliving@uq.edu.au

Care Coordinator Catherine has been with Jubilee for eight months and loves meeting our clients.

What does your Care Coordinator position involve? I coordinate supports for consumers on Home Care Packages levels 1-4. I like to meet the consumer face to face, to talk about their life and how they are supported day to day. I am responsible for sending rostering requests, recognising changing care needs, requesting and approving consumer purchases, and managing the consumer’s HCP budget as well as reviewing yearly care plans and other paperwork. I am also involved in the intake of new consumers and anything else deemed necessary to perform my duty.

What is your home care experience? I have worked in the home care sector for more than 20 years both in aged care and disability. I have been working with Home Care Packages since they started back in 2016/17 and have a huge range of knowledge and skills that I bring to the job. I love working in a team and take great pleasure in imparting and sharing the knowledge I have with others.
Why do you like working at Jubilee? It has been interesting and has come with its own challenges as each service provider does things differently. I am genuinely happy in the team and with the organisation as a whole and I am looking forward to a long and happy future with Jubilee.

Tell us a bit about yourself: I am originally from the United Kingdom, migrating here in 2005 with my then 15-year-old son. He is now 18 years older, which means I am too! I was graced with three children and brought them up singlehandedly. My other two children came to Australia after me and have settled here too. I have five beautiful grandchildren – three in Australia and two in the UK.

Since being in Australia I have tried abseiling on the Sunshine Coast and parasailing in Bali which I loved both. I would love to parachute from a plane and plan to do this on my 100th birthday – that way I will know it will be once and once only. I love my coffee and admit to being a bit of a coffee snob.

What’s something that makes you smile? Babies and puppies.

Who would you most like to swap places with for a day and why? I would love to swap places with Elon Musk for a day so that I could have my own free, top-of-the-range Tesla car, and also fly to the moon.

There will be changes to Jubilee services with the upcoming public holidays. These will fall on Wednesday, August 16 (Ekka Show Day) and Monday, October 2 (King’s Birthday).

On these days essential services of personal care and medication assistance will be provided while domestic assistance, meal preparation, social support, respite and shopping services will not be. Also, please note that your services supplied on these public holidays may not be with a known support worker and might not be at your preferred time due to staffing limitations.

The office will be closed on these public holidays. For more information phone the Jubilee office on 3871 3220.