The drivers of reform across Australia’s health and social care sector are pushing a sector to change not only how it does things, but also how it thinks about things. The “professionalisation” of Australia’s care saw the growing demarcation of work and power between clients, staff, and volunteers. By the 1990’s double degrees, topped up with a post graduate qualification would impress interview panels for many front line roles. A decade or so earlier, volunteers or informal

You’ve done the sports drop off and now have less than 2 hours to maneuver through Sydney’s Saturday morning traffic to pick up your 80 year old mum who needs to go grocery shopping. Of course she said she didn’t need a service when the hospital social worker was planning her discharge. “…My daughter can do all that for me…” I never quite appreciated the term “sandwich generation”. But I get it now and I am not alone. It is difficult to negotiate the social care sector with a

Policy and funding reforms are impacting on services, systems and sectors. Ticking a box to comply to a set of standards is not enough. Linking concepts of quality and translating them into business systems and front line practice will give you the cutting edge, in what is set to be a highly competitive community support market. Quality, focussed on consistently safe and outcome driven service provision will be the focus of government, providers but most importantly customers

I tell you no lie. I was leading a strategic planning session and one hour later they were still going on about the label they would use to describe the people who they serve. “ I don’t like consumer”…. said one woman. My clients don’t “consume”. Another said…”customer is so commercial…the next thing we will be doing is selling personal care at a bargain price…” The conversation got heated (and long). Frankly, I was not surprised but I was getting bored. So I intervened… “ Wh

I am glad I chose Social Work and am privileged to have worked with so many people and their communities. I’ve worked in nursing homes, “group homes” for people with disability, youth detention centres, jails, hospitals, people’s homes and “the streets”. I did my work in Sydney, remote Indigenous communities, the USA, England and in Greece. There is no doubt my choice to work in social care has led me to meet people and experience things that have shaped my view of the world.