News

Until he was introduced to ACH Group, Francesco Barresi, 81, never imagined that taking up the offer of a Home Care Package would see him return to the airwaves of Radio Italiana 531.

For a decade, Francesco Barresi caught the bus to Wright Street in the city to be part of a weekly talkback segment.

A singer and poet in his younger years in Sicily, Francesco loved to play requests and share stories with his listeners, many of them Italian migrants themselves.

In January with support from ACH Group, he revisited friends and toured the station’s new headquarters at Hindmarsh. He was also given the chance to speak again on air.

“When I walked in, they said to me ‘It’s the poet, Francesco!’” he says. “They invited me to sit and chat with them. It was good to be back.’”

Francesco and his wife Grace live at their home of 37 years with support from ACH Group, including house cleaning and gardening, as well as weekly exercise therapy.

Francesco ventures over to the nearby Coopers Stadium  to watch his beloved Reds train, with the support of his care workers while Grace goes shopping and takes some time out.

Grace says she and Francesco, who sailed to Australia in 1966 with an 18-month old daughter and baby boy on the way, are very happy living in their own home.

“I would love to be able to look after Frank here at home for as long as possible,” she says. “The help and support of my aged care team has made this possible for me.”

Find out more about ACH Group’s home support services here, or phone 1300 22 44 77.

Congratulations to ACH Group Perry Park Site Manager Karen Barwick, who has been named as a finalist in the ‘Excellence in Innovation in Education Category’ in the SA Health South Australian Nursing and Midwifery Excellence Awards.

Karen has been recognised for her strong commitment to Interprofessional Learning (IPL) at ACH Group, and has been an integral part of the IPL Leadership Group since its inception in 2012.

Interprofessional Learning is when students from two or more professions (e.g. a nurse and a physiotherapist) work together to learn and reflect about their professions’ similarities and differences.

ACH Group believes an IPL approach to learning improves communication, collaboration, reduces risk of practising in isolation and ultimately improves the quality of care.

Karen’s nomination was strongly linked to the fact that at Perry Park she has established a student placement approach where the student’s  learning objectives are matched with placement activities, to provide an authentic positive contribution to the lives of older people.

Award winners will be announced at a Gala Dinner at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Friday 12 May 2017.

Best of luck, Karen!

 

A group of ACH Group Sing for Joy Choir members experienced a live television interview in Adelaide last week.

The group were asked to be part of Channel 44’s ‘FringeWatch’, a live online streaming show, to spruik their debut performance at the Adelaide Fringe on Sunday.

After a quick make-up session, each were given a run-down on how the interview would run, then formed a ‘studio audience’ to watch on before and after their own interview.

Host, comedian Jason Chong, kept the choir on their toes, interviewing each member on stage including Neville Manning, who joined the Seaford choir three years ago.

“I’ve never had my makeup done before,” he joked. “It’s all a good experience.”

Choir member Annie Cizakowsky, who wrote a song for the Fringe performance, said she enjoyed being part of the show.

“I was a bit nervous at first and I don’t think I was very good at holding the microphone,” she said. “But it was great fun, I loved it.”

Watch the show here.

During days of extreme heat, older people can be particularly vulnerable.

Take a look at our fact sheet on coping with extreme heat for older people and for families and carers, plus a few tips on being bushfire ready.

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ACH Group has joined forces with Police Credit Union to allow people to access funds secured in the present day value of their License to Occupy.

The Go Sixty Plus Lifestyle Personal Loan is a unique product based on the equity and financial arrangement with ACH Group.

The scheme is available to residents of ACH Group residential facilities or units under a License to Occupy.

Police Credit Union Senior Relationship Manager Brenda Davidson says the arrangement means people can borrow and have the borrowings secured against the value of their future refund due to them.

“This loan allows you to free up the value in your retirement residence and use it to your benefit, so that the choices become yours,” she says. “It is about helping you to achieve your lifestyle goals and aspirations, whatever they are. It allows you to draw down either as a personal loan in larger amounts for bigger purchases (like a new car or a big holiday), or a line of credit in small, regular amounts (as an income supplement), or you can choose both.”

The borrowing amount is calculated against the investment you have in your lifestyle village. Benefits include:

• Police Credit Union will provide a dedicated, trusted advisor to work with you
• Use the money for any worthwhile purpose
• Opt for lump sum or partial draw downs
• Cash reserve facility for future access
• Very competitive fixed interest rate
• No monthly account keeping fees
• No early termination fees

This type of borrowing is subject to a standard credit contract and standard lending criteria.

If you are interested in obtaining more information or advice, please contact Brenda on (08) 8208 5628 or 0438 859 736 or email [email protected] or ACH Group Real Estate Services Manager Nat Johncock on (08) 8159 3480.

Full details available upon application. Any advice herein does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Please consider your circumstances and the Information Statement available from PCU to decide if the product is right for you. Terms, conditions, fees, charges and lending criteria apply. Find out more here. 

Relationships are at the heart of an award-winning international aged care leadership program launched in Adelaide this month.Fourteen senior managers from South Australia’s aged care industry undertook the My Home Life (MHL) Leadership Support program at St Hilarion and ACH Group across two weeks.

The MHL England (Professor Julienne Meyer CBE, City University London) and MHL Scotland Director (Professor Belinda Dewar, University of West of Scotland) were invited to deliver the program by the SA Innovation Hub, a community of aged care providers who are working together to share knowledge, learn from each other and implement new ideas to support older people.

The program started 10 years ago in the UK and builds on the more traditional person-centred, customer-facing approaches by placing more emphasis on relationships and engagement.

“We believe that relationships are important, so that means valuing the staff members, family members and the person receiving the service, knowing that these people are interdependent and work together,” Julienne says. “We also focus on caring conversations, because we believe that relationships depend on the way we talk to one another.”

MHL began as a small project to pull together what is known about best practice in care homes, but grew into a social movement that promotes quality of life for people who live, die, visit and work in care homes. Starting in England, the MHL message resonated and quickly spread across the UK into Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

“People are going into care homes older, sicker and frailer, and the workforce needs to be supported and upskilled,” she says. “These issues are prevalent around the world. The way in which society often doesn’t value older people and their experiences has a knock-on effect on those who work in the sector. That’s what’s great about collaborating internationally; we can draw on each other’s learning and explore best practice together.”

Belinda says another point of difference with the program is its ‘appreciative enquiry approach’. “Our starting point is to work out what’s working well and to understand why, rather than focusing on problems and trying to fix them. We look at beautiful practice and why it is working well to give us the answers to solve the things that perhaps aren’t working so well.”

SA Innovation Hub executive officer Sarah Rhead says the MHL program is all about promoting cultural change within organisations. “Our sector is experiencing rapid social, technological and political change,” she says. “It is important that our leaders are ready to embrace that change and to create a positive future together.”

According to the latest Department of Social Services analysis of Commonwealth funded aged care workforce activities, over the next 35 years the aged care workforce will be required to triple from 352,145 people to 827,100 people in 2050.

The My Home Life program will return to South Australia next year. To find out more, please contact Sarah Rhead on 0428 871 839.

 

ACH Group’s new CEO has commenced today, and he is excited about leading the organisation and its people in a way that will offer new opportunities for older people to live good lives.

Mr Ray Creen comes to ACH Group with an enviable record in senior health leadership roles, both in the United Kingdom and Australia.
He is well known for his leadership of SA Ambulance Service from 2008-2013, during which time the organisation was recognised as one of the top performing ambulance services in the country. A number of innovative initiatives were implemented under his leadership, including a unique ‘out-of-hospital’ service delivery where patients were treated in their homes if possible. This minimised disruption for the individual, and freed up hospital resources.

Mr Creen further made his mark as the CEO of NSW Ambulance, where he set a bold and exciting direction for the organisation that set an agenda of modernised service delivery, cultural change and values-based leadership. He is well known for his ability to develop excellent working relationships and is regularly called upon to offer advice and consultancy on leadership, performance improvement and cultural transformational change.

ACH Group Chairman Geoff Holdich said the ACH Group Board couldn’t be more pleased with the appointment.
“There were a number of outstanding applicants from around Australia and indeed the world. In Ray we have a very strong leader who, throughout his career, has uniquely and successfully combined a person-centred approach with a strong operational focus,” he said.

“We believe he is more than equipped to build on ACH Group’s strengths – and the legacy that has been created by outgoing CEO Mike Rungie – to continue to build the organisation into a world class, best practice organisation that brings together the best of aged and health care services, and continues to advocate for older people.”

Mr Creen says he is ready to join ACH Group.

“I am delighted to be joining an iconic aged care organisation such as ACH Group, where the values of the organisation closely mirror my own. I am looking forward to bringing my skills and experience to the table and working closely with the expert team that has such a tremendous record of supporting older people through quality care. Notably, ACH Group also demonstrates a sound commitment to ensuring that quality care is matched by quality of life experiences, and this excites me.

I realise that there are many challenges ahead, as we navigate through the changing climate due to government reforms and the ageing population, but ACH Group is already in an excellent position to continue delivering on its vision of good lives for older people.”

 

Read more about our Leadership Team HERE >

A stroke was never going to dampen the artist in Francine Jacques. She just changed her painting style….and went from being a right hand painter to a left.

“I can’t do the intricate sketches and portraits I used to do, but I can still do landscapes in oil and acrylics,” the ACH Group Perry Park resident says.

Every second year, Francine enters a number of her Australiana landscapes in the South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Festival and this year is no different, with eight exhibits entered.

Francine began painting as a child, but says her artistic side took a back seat for many years as she juggled work, a move to Australia from Belgium and motherhood.

“I moved to Perry Park when I had my stroke in 2006. One day I saw a lady painting and asked if I could, too. I was brought some paints and canvases, and have never looked back.”

Today, Francine paints twice a week – generally from photos and pictures of outback scenes.

The walls of Perry Park’s corridors are lined with her exquisite Australian landscapes bursting with colour – from the rich reds of the Northern Territory to the lush green vegetation of Western Australia in springtime and the ochre of the Murray River’s soaring cliffs.

“I have always loved the Australian landscape and even though I can’t get out to see it as much these days, the memory of it is still very strong in my mind – the richness of the colours especially.”

Francine says she is looking forward to viewing her SALA exhibits in this year’s festival, but says none of her paintings will go on sale.

“I hate letting go of any of them. I’ve only ever sold one, and even then I hesitated. I just like to keep them all.”

One of Francine’s biggest supporters is her husband, who also lives at Perry Park in an adjoining room.

“It’s lovely that we can still be together,” Francine says.

ACH Group has been involved in SALA each year for the past six years, beginning with a single venue exhibition in 2010.

Dementia Learning and Development Unit Senior Manager Lenore de la Perelle says SALA supports ACH Group’s Healthy Ageing Approach which makes it as easy as possible for people in its residential living homes to choose to be active, remain connected and engage in what they love to do.

“When people paint or draw they are describing their emotions; expressing something that they can’t find words for,” she says. “Art gives people the opportunity to look back and think about things in a creative and deeply meaningful way.”

This year ACH Group will show art at seven unique venues, including its flagship venue at The Space Between, Rundle St, to be officially opened next Thursday. SALA runs from 1 to 31 August.