Aged care providers say thanks to volunteers
As Australian marks National Volunteer Week, aged care providers acknowledge the army of unpaid workers who provide more than 110,000 hours of service each year in residential care.
As Australian marks National Volunteer Week, aged care providers acknowledge the army of unpaid workers who provide more than 110,000 hours of service each year in residential care.
Every week in residential aged care facilities across Australia, more than 23,000 people give up their free time to help provide essential services to residents.
“Volunteers are compassionate people, who genuinely care and want to help make a difference to the lives of those around them,” said Jennene Buckley, CEO of aged care provider Feros Care.
Ms Buckley’s organisation had 129 active volunteers helping out across its community and residential villages last financial year.
“We understand the value of volunteers, with so many extraordinary people helping out in various roles,” Ms Buckley said.
Volunteers are an essential segment of the aged care workforce, as the recent 2016 National Aged Care Workforce Census and Survey showed.
The survey found:
- there were 23,537 volunteers in residential facilities last year who worked an average of 4.9 hours each a fortnight
- volunteers collectively provided 114,897 hours of service last year
- 83 per cent of aged care facilities had one or more volunteers.
The survey also found that both the overall number of volunteers and the total hours offered by them were higher last year than in 2012.
Residential facilities in inner regional locations were most likely to have volunteers, while those in remote and very remote areas had fewer volunteers than the average, according to the survey.
The use of volunteers by residential facilities also differed by ownership type, the survey found. Not-for-profit facilities were more likely to use volunteers (91 per cent), than for-profit (72 per cent) or government facilities (69 per cent).
Last year’s survey included a new question about the roles undertaken by volunteers in aged care. It showed that residential facilities most often used volunteers for:
- social activity support assistance (82 per cent)
- planning of group activities (68 per cent) and
- companionship/befriending (64 per cent).
A smaller share of facilities had volunteers undertaking roles of transport assistants (23 per cent), shopping or appointment assistants (16 per cent) and gardening assistants (15 per cent).
Evolving roles
ACH Group volunteer team leader Tay Parker said the role of volunteers at her organisation was evolving.
“We’re moving away from what has been quite a passive role to something more dynamic,” she said.
“In our social links programs in particular, we try to match volunteers with customers who both love doing the same thing. It’s about doing things with people instead of doing things for them,” said Ms Parker.
There are 380 volunteers across ACH Group who contribute 77,300 hours a year in a broad range of roles – from supporting specialist dementia and respite programs to helping with social support and transport.
Role in palliative care
Palliative Care Australia said that volunteers were an important part of palliative and end-of-life care.
“Not only do they work directly with patients and carers, as unpaid workers they provide a link between community and healthcare providers,” said PCA chief executive Liz Callaghan.
National Volunteer Week runs from 8-14 May.
Related AAA coverage: Meet the people volunteering in aged care
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Yes thank goodness for volunteers……………….they continue to make up the shortfall in staff within aged care.
Without volunteers in aged care how would the industry manage/survive ?? Well possibly we would be hearing more stories akin to Oakden.
Aged care providers have become too reliant upon volunteers to the detriment of employing trained staff and for those who would disagree with this, find out what tasks many volunteers within this industry are currently now assisting with.
I volunteer for 10 hours per week at a Residential Aged Care premises in Berwick. I work with the Lifestyle Department and carry out the following duties;
Mondays:
In the morning I either take the current affairs session with the resident, or take my sketch pad, pencils& gel pens into the secured area and carry out a colour drawing class for the residents to colour what I have drawn or assist them with their own colouring, all the while we sing along with a DVD or CD of old time Music. This is most rewarding
Monday afternoon I assist the Lifestyle ladies with the Art & Craft session by preparing things for the session,and assisting the residents with their Art tasks.
Thursdays Morning:
I normally read the paper to the residents and involve them in discussing the article, we always finish the day with the trivia quiz in the paper, before going onto nominating a letter and a subject and the residents think of word to match the letter and subject and I write them down, this is good stimulation therapy.
After lunch on Thursdays:
I am around to 2.00pm and I assist the staff in getting the residents who are not mobile to their afternoons activity.
All in All this is very rewarding and I have made a lot of friends at the Home, I enjoy my assisting the lifestyle Department and my interaction with the residents. This has become a large and happy part of my life.
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