Grant winners target urgent and critical need, staff burnout

Aged Care Research and Industry Innovation Australia has announced the remaining six projects to receive a grant in the program’s fourth round – four of which target the priority area of urgent and critical need.

Four recipients in this round also target the area of staff burnout including three winning projects already named at ARIIA’s conference in May.

The ARIIA Grants aim to benefit the aged care sector through the development and translation of high-quality projects that address important gaps in the aged care workforce’s capability and knowledge.

The program provides projects with a maximum of $160,000 and requires a mandatory co-contribution from recipients, and a quick turnaround of results within a year.

Among recipients targeting urgent and critical need are Swinburne University of Technology, Uniting (NSW, ACT), The Salvation Army, and University of Melbourne for their social connection assessment and enablement toolkit. This project also targets the priority areas of rehabilitation, reablement & restorative care, social isolation, and mental health and wellbeing.

Another is Dementia Australia, Deakin University School of Nursing and Midwifery, Barwon Health and National Ageing Research Institute for their project to improve workforce capability and capacity through the use of an artificially intelligent avatar to communicate with people living with dementia. This project also addresses dementia, and mental health and wellbeing.

In addition to urgent and critical need, grant recipients La Trobe University, Sunraysia Community Health Service and Monash Health are addressing end of life and palliative care with their implementation of a novel palliative care assessment toolkit in rural residential aged care facilities.

St Basil’s Homes (SA) and Griffith University are addressing both staff burnout and urgent and critical need in their project that will develop and pilot a role matrix that empowers careers across aged care.

Other grant winners announced last week include:

• Bolton Clarke, Flinders University College of Medicine and Public Health for Enabling Choices, a risk negotiation tool for frontline staff to collaborate with people living with dementia
• Monash Health and Regis Aged Care for their palliative and end-of-life care improvement program for people living in residential aged care.

ARIIA research director Professor Sue Gordon said the grants addressed community-based and residential care priorities and would enable the recipients to make improvements in urban and regional areas across Australia.

“Once again, the standard of applications was high, with a few addressing staff burnout, which has been identified as a serious issue by the aged care sector, and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.

“As these projects must be undertaken over the next 12 months, we will be able to see research evidence about the impacts that has been made to address this issue and job satisfaction in aged care,” she said.

The ARIIA Grants Program consists of at least six rounds funded against key sector priorities of focus for the aged care sector that are revised each grant round. Round 5 recipients will be announced soon, and Round 6 has recently closed.

Apply for innovator training

Applications are however now open for the seventh round of ARIIA’s Innovator Training Program.

This program is open to anyone who works in the aged care sector who has a workplace problem to solve. Through a series of self-directed learning modules, facilitated co-design workshops and small peer group project discussions, participants learn how to:

• understand their problem
• find a best-practice evidence-based solution
• adapt it to their situation
• plan its implementation
• measure the outcome of the change.

Round 7 applications close Friday 21 July 2023.

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