OPAN kicks off national diversity project
An initiative launched this week aims to encourage providers to meet the needs of diverse older Australians.
A free national education initative launched this week aims to help aged care providers meet the needs of diverse older Australians.
Developed by the Older Persons Advocacy Network, the Who’s Missing? Planning for Diversity project aims to enable aged care services to develop responses to a range of barriers facing people from diverse and marginalised groups when they enter aged care.
“Aged care has to be available, accessible, responsive and culturally safe for all older Australians,” OPAN CEO Craig Gear told Australian Ageing Agenda.
It’s important to ensure that prividers recognise “the cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity of all older Australians” and “plan for that,” added Mr Gear.
The government-funded initiative consists of a series of three workshops – two face-to-face and one online – and learning resources aimed at the person responsible for quality improvement, service planning or compliance.
The workshops kick off in Queensland next week and will take place in 14 metropolitan and regional locations. Tasmania is next from 9 February with dates set for Hobart and Launceston. A staged rollout of workshops to other states plus online learning modules are planned for the second half of this year.
The aim, said Mr Gear, is for providers to become more culturally aware. “We know that diversity is everybody’s business in aged care. You can’t do aged care and not do diversity.”
The diverse populations targeted through the program are:
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders
- older people from the LGBTQI+ community
- older people from culturally and linguistically diverse groups
- older veterans.
The barriers faced by these populations that may impact their experiences of aged care include intergenerational trauma.
Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a deep mistrust of institutions as a result of past experiences. While older people in LGBTQI+ communities may fear being forced back into the closet when they enter a residential aged care home.
Older people from culturally and linguistically diverse groups can experience isolation as a result of being unable to communicate with staff. And older veterans may be impacted by exposure to battlefield trauma.
OPAN’s diversity project was developed in response to a recommendation by the aged care royal commission calling on aged care providers to meet the unique needs of older people from diverse backgrounds and communities.
Free to attend and access, the workshops and resources have been developed and produced in collaboration with peak bodies representing people from diverse populations.
Once the program has ended there will be an ongoing community of practice, said Mr Gear. “That way providers can learn from each other about what good looks like and how we can plan for services to be responsive to culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse people in our communities.”
Those interested in participating in the project can register here.
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I am surprised to see that these workshops are not including older Care Leavers, given the sheer number of older people who spent their childhoods in institutional care, the significant trauma they experienced (and still do) and the resulting barriers to care. Given the Senate Inquiry, Royal Commission, State and National Apologies and Govt funding to organisations nationally to help improve their care – this makes no sense and is non-inclusive.
All good that there are diversity programs from a business perspective BUT we also need to look at supporting the aged care workforce who are also diverse by experience, age, ethnicity, socio-economic background, geography etc. We need to look at diversity beyond the Government subscribed populations. I hope the program will look at intersectionality in which there are overlapping human aspects that construct a person’s experiences of ageing and which may exacerbate their marginalization.