New alliance to boost Aboriginal home care

A major aged care provider has partnered with a local Aboriginal health provider to offer culturally appropriate home care packages in the hopes of improving indigenous people’s uptake of mainstream community aged care services.

Baptcare said its partnership with the Bendigo and District Aboriginal Cooperative (BDAC) aimed to promote awareness among Aboriginal people of the range of services available, as well securing training and support for its staff in delivering culturally-appropriate care.

The partnership came about after the aged care assessment service in Bendigo identified that Aboriginal aged care clients were severely under-represented in assessment for home care packages, according to Michael Faneco, Baptcare regional manager.

While there were some Aboriginal-specific home care service providers in the region, they sometimes did not have any available packages, and in other cases indigenous people wanted a choice of provider beyond Aboriginal-specific, Mr Faneco told Australian Ageing Agenda.

Baptcare approached BDAC to discuss the need for “culturally appropriate and respectful access” for Aboriginal people eligible for a home care package, he said.

The resulting partnership, which was signed in late December, will see BDAC increasingly refer Aboriginal people to Baptcare for home care service provision, while Baptcare staff will be able to tap into the skills and expertise of BDAC to assist them in providing culturally appropriate care and services.

“From Baptcare’s point of view we are committed to meeting the needs of all clients in the community, but in particular those who have barriers to accessing care. Aboriginal clients are one group that we stride to provide culturally appropriate care to,” said Mr Faneco.

“The partnership between our organisations will help to increase our staff’s understanding of the impact on the Aboriginal community of issues such as premature ageing, as well as some other health conditions that staff need to be aware of.

“It will also help us up-skill our care managers and enhance their understanding of the Aboriginal community; within that we can call on the BDAC workers to seek advice and to work more collaboratively with clients.”

In addition, Mr Faneco said Baptcare will be able utilise BDAC’s existing health and medical services, which will support case managers as they work with Aboriginal clients to ensure they live healthy lives at home.

With the full implementation of consumer directed care by mid-year, the push towards delivering culturally-specific packages, which similarly follows a client-centred approach, was timely, Mr Faneco said.

“CDC fits in well with the approach [to Aboriginal-specific packages] because we can be creative and work with BDAC; that might mean thinking outside the square – but within the packaged care guidelines… It’s about how we work with the client to determine what they want, and what would best meet their needs.”

Mr Faneco said the partnership would formalise and strengthen the developing working relationship between BDAC and Baptcare, which ultimately aimed to increase indigenous communities’ access to culturally appropriate home care packages.

“Over time we will have regular meetings with BDAC and we will tweak our way of working together and, dependent on the throughput of clients and their needs, there may be lessons we need to learn from the partnership,” he said.