A marriage made in CDC heaven
As many aged and community care service providers consider their futures, two successful organisations have announced the happy outcome of their ‘complex courtship’, making them a major player in the eastern states.
Happily merged – Care Connect chief executive officer, Paul Ostrowski and former chief executive of Diverse Community Care, Helen Carter.
By Keryn Curtis
“We need to put the overwhelming amount of resources into client services and minimise administration. If you put like-minded organisations together you can offer clients a lot more but do it much more efficiently.”
Innovative eastern states community care organisation, Care Connect, has become one of the largest secular not for profit providers in Australia with the announced merger with Diverse Community Care last week.
The merger also expands the service offering of both Diverse Community Care and Care Connect, including personalised services for children, young people, adults, older adults and carers.
Chief executive officer of Care Connect, Mr Paul Ostrowski, said the newly created Care Connect Group now supports over 13,000 Australians each year and is in a stronger position to meet the future competitive challenges that face the community care sector.
“With total funding of almost $50m, the merger has created one of the strongest not-for-profit secular providers in Australia,” he said.
Mr Ostrowski said the merger made sense because the two organisations had a similar ethos, the same ‘case management’ style of working and shared a strong belief in person centred practice.
“We also work in the same territories, share a number of common programs and have a common vision for the future – one where the individual is at the centre of all that we do.”
But he said the key driver for both organisations was the recognition that the shift to a deregulated services sector and the consumer-directed care model has business implications for smaller providers.
“Moving to a market model of care, we need the capacity to develop and deliver competitive consumer focused services and to promote ourselves to the consumer, not to government,” said Mr Ostrowski.
“We need to put the overwhelming amount of resources into client services and minimise administration. If you put like-minded organisations together you can offer clients a lot more but do it much more efficiently.
“Organisations disappointed with the last ACAR need to ask themselves if they are aggressive enough about how they could be more productive and more efficient for consumers,” he said.
Smooth transitions
Mr Ostrowski said that merger and acquisition partnerships, where there is no exchange of money, were always difficult but that the process had been smooth.
“They are complex courtships that both of the boards have to go through,” he said.
“Both boards recognised that a partnership was essential. It’s just not possible for so many smaller individual organisations to be successful competing and doing the same thing. So it was a question of do we wait until we are under that pressure, or make the decision and work through it and be in a strong position.”
Mr Ostrowski said Diverse Community Care had come to Care Connect as one of several organisations they were looking at as potential partners.
“There was a very clear fit between our two organisations’ care models and ethos and we both have a very strong belief in person-centred practice.
“We both feel strongly that the ‘client advice model’, as opposed to the service provision model, has a unique attraction in a consumer-directed world.
“People coming to a service provider are usually experiencing a time of crisis – and having someone in the role of trusted adviser, who is totally independent, is very appealing.”
Helen Carter, formerly chief executive officer of Diverse Community Care – whose service area has been the middle and western suburbs of Sydney – has remained with the new organisation, taking on the role of state regional manager for NSW and Qld.
She says the merger was an amicable and collaborative process, demonstrating the strength and maturity of the sector.
“Non-profits are ideally suited to developing communities and services – our natural habit of collaboration enables outstanding client and business outcomes,” she said.
