Are you?
You're getting hot.
Helen and I first met about 30 years ago.
A little over 30 years ago and Helen was living in the same institution where I was working,
or commenced working.
And I caught up with her again about 10 years ago and the changes were just wonderful to
see.
Helen was living very differently to the Helen I met 30 years ago, but also I was supporting
people very differently.
In the intervening years of course, attitudes and philosophies about disability had really
changed and with the implementation of the national standards, the flow on effect was
a change in life for people like Helen.
Do they do that in Adelaide?
We've had a lot of training videos or a lot of exposure about what the standards actually
are pitched generally at the consumer group, which is absolutely appropriate.
But often support workers really struggle with how to implement the standards.
So this video is for them.
It's been a nice day, hasn't it Helen?
Essentially the national standards cover three main points.
The first thing is that they ensure a minimum standard of service for anyone with disability.
The second point is that they provide agencies with benchmarks or guidelines about providing
that service and of course the ultimate is that it provides continual quality of care
for people.
There's 12 standards as I said.
Three of them are specifically for employment services.
There are some standards which are considered to be organisational standards, particularly
issues around service access, complaints and disputes and service management.
But the standards that we'd be focusing on today are the standards that we're going to
be focusing on today are those that affect direct support workers around individual needs,
complaints and dispute, decision making and choice, privacy, dignity and confidentiality,
participation and integration, valued status and standard 12 which is the protection of
human rights and freedom from abuse.
In employing support workers it is the board's and management's job to ensure that their
staff are well trained and well versed in how they should be implementing the standards
and they need to have policies and procedures in place that also support staff.
In this house we have two staff with two clients.
If we go out we normally call someone in for extra support so you can have that one to
one.
People have moved out of the institution and they're living in the community so therefore
they're mixing with other people in the community.
Just the whole atmosphere, like they all had large dormitory style bedrooms so everyone
was sort of grouped together in bedrooms.
There was really no time, it was just basic nursing care so it was seeing to people's
basic needs.
The ratio there was one person or one staff member to five people so therefore you didn't
have much time through the day to spend with people individually.
I can remember there was one person who all he used to do was cry and when he moved out
into the community I was working at the house that he first moved into and just to see the
change in him.
He used to laugh all the time, it was just a real joy to see the change.
That told me that he was getting something out of being in the community, being in his
own home.
We've got a birthday present in there for your mum, do you want to wrap that up?
Hey, wow!
You better say happy birthday to mum for me.
We've got a vase and some flowers.
Alrighty, cheers, see you Monday.
Have some afternoon tea and then get straight into wrapping your birthday present for mum,
alright?
And that's this.
How old's your mum?
Fifty.
Fifty.
We support Brett, Tim, Kelly and Sam.
So just the four guys.
We're living all together now at once.
I haven't known Tim for as long.
We've got a pretty, a connection there with music.
I think he really loves his music and he's got a keyboard, it's in his room.
Yeah, it's really good.
I think that's bonded us pretty close.
And Sarah, is that what you guys said?
Yes.
Did you want?
Or peanut butter?
It's bad, they're pissed.
You know which cupboard it is in?
Yeah, five o'clock it says and it's half past three, so not long.
Who are they for?
Mummy?
Yeah.
Mummy?
And flowers need to go in something, so that's going to go in there.
But don't throw them in, they'll still go to school.
Mummy?
Brett finished school I think two years ago, he goes to a day off, sentinel.
What a V, mate.
It's more of a buddy relationship, you know, wrestling and throwing each other around.
He does, I think he honestly, we were talking about it in our meeting the other day,
I think he honestly thinks I'm like a big brother.
Lynn who was the senior support worker at the time, she was the mother figure type.
Then you've got Brett and I, probably pretty much similar in the way we are with the guys.
Sarah, would you like to wrap your mum's present up?
Yep.
This is good.
Watch out.
As your mum's going to be home soon.
We've got a communication book process that everything's documented and there'll be notes and stuff.
This is right across the border.
Do you want to help me here?
Put that in the centre please.
This is probably one of the bigger teams, so it's quite interesting that there'll be conflicting ideas and thoughts
and that's why the support meetings are very handy, especially in this team there.
In other teams I'm on, they're only once a month meetings, but this one, because of its largeness,
they have them pretty much every three weeks or even two weeks.
Hold it, Sarah.
Yep.
Hold it.
There we go.
Sarah, wrap that for the mum.
Mum, sit down.
Well, I've been working with Lovita now for nearly ten years.
I started off in the high support with people like Debbie that are in wheelchairs and they need a lot of support.
But now I'm working with people with challenging behaviours.
They are ambulant and they do a lot for themselves.
They're able to be fairly independent.
Now my role then is to try to increase their independence so hopefully one day they will be able to live on their own without care.
Thank you, Cal.
You going to let mum in?
Oh.
Oh, mommy.
Oh, sweetie.
Hello.
Hello.
Kiss.
Kiss.
Oh.
Oh, good.
See you, Cully.
See you tomorrow.
Hello, darling.
How are you?
How are you?
Mommy.
Hello, darling.
So.
Oh.
How are you?
Good.
You want to go home?
Yeah.
And what do you say to mum?
No.
What do you say to mum for a happy birthday?
Happy birthday.
Thank you.
Say, didn't you wrap a present for mum?
Did you wrap a present?
Don't drop it.
Don't smash it.
What's this, Sarah?
What is it?
Puppet.
Oh, wow.
Thank you.
Who are these flowers for, Say?
Did you wrap it up?
Look.
Look what Matt's got all of it.
Look.
Want to give them to mum?
Yes.
And a big happy birthday?
Happy birthday.
Oh, wow.
Sarah, thank you very much.
What a good girl.
Mummy's very spoiled.
Aren't I?
I've been working in the industry about seven years.
When I first went for my placement, I was a bit nervous of it.
Well, I was very frightened of it.
I was frightened of disabilities in general.
Even though I'd had contact with people with disabilities,
I always presumed they were fragile, they were, you know,
you have to be very careful with them.
In fact, most of the times it's the opposite.
They're completely and utterly normal in that respect.
My friend is blind and she also has Down syndrome.
She's a very active person, loves music.
All kinds of music, everything from classical music
right through to hermeneutics.
It depends on the mood she's in, of course.
I think I had the impression that they were sick.
They're not sick.
Their bodies don't work the way they'd like them to,
but they're definitely not sick.
And I think that's, in the general population,
that's the impression people think because people
got disabilities they're ill.
They're not ill or they're not sick.
They're fine.
Even they might look ill.
What for us would be an abnormal for them is completely normal.
Why are you doing this?
They're filming you being glamorous.
You put your makeup on special for that, didn't you?
Let's see your eyes.
Oh, beautiful. They're stunning.
I've been working six years with Housing Connection.
First time I've actually ever done this sort of work,
so I was pretty lucky to get in.
It's been an unbelievable road in the sense of
what you think when you first start to how you think now.
It's a big thing.
When you first start, you're bombarded with all this
sort of orientation sort of stuff.
You have policies, procedures, standards,
and at first you think, well, hang on,
what is all this sort of stuff?
And so once you start working with the climate,
you actually understand it a lot more.
And I think that's a good thing, yeah,
to be able to give them all this stuff first,
and you try and relate to it as you're doing it.
That's good. We've got some smaller ones.
Yeah, so basically with starting out,
it's mind-blowing with all the information it's given to you
on how to, with accountability, duty of care,
all this sort of stuff, it can be a bit off-putting.
You think, well, hang on, this sounds pretty scary,
but once you get in there and you start doing it,
yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Yeah, I've had a lot of good times.
I first met Wayne when he just moved out of home,
and to see him change and grow from there,
living on his own before to living on his own now,
it's been a real rollercoaster, but exciting ride,
and it's been really good to actually see someone
come out and do something for themselves
and enjoy life on their own.
Yep, so yeah, now it's very good.
Hello.
I'll move straight on to organisational issues
because there is a change in format.
The new format is that we can write down
the person responsible for each task
and the date to complete, so that hopefully
that means that things don't go on and on
without being completed, and at the end of the meeting,
I'll just photocopy the minutes,
and everyone will get them at that time.
Yes, OK, I'll do it.
I suppose one of the issues we're going to be looking at today
is the moving to his new house,
and I'm just sort of wondering about the positives
and the negatives of that, I suppose, really.
I can sort of see a few hitches maybe, but...
I think it's just going to be reassuring him
that it's all going to be all right, and yeah, it's just going to be...
There's certainly going to be, I think, a level of anxiety
for Wayne with the changes that are happening.
There's going to be furniture, who's going to buy what.
Wayne's actually had the opportunity to already buy a washing machine,
so that's good.
I've spoken to Peter and his mother,
and they're going to purchase a new fridge.
So things...the sharing is actually happening...
I suppose things like his social time,
can't expect the guys to have to go on the same social outing
or whatever, you know, they're still going to have some of their...
still have their own identity in some of the stuff they do.
That's right.
And the next step will be next week I'll be contacting both families
to set up meetings with them
to discuss all of those issues and what it looks like it will happen.
We have actually employed two new support workers.
One of those people, Nigel, will be coming on to Wayne's team,
and they're commencing double-ups this week,
so everyone will be contacted by Nigel as well,
because most people are involved in those double-ups for Wayne.
OK?
He likes a lot of social activity,
but I mean, it's unrealistic to be going to movies...
That's right, and that's why I think it's been our last four or five minutes
that...and it's Wayne's choice.
It's not about bloody punishing the man,
it's about budget restraint.
You can choose to go out in the day and agree to stay home at night,
which he has done,
or do the night thing and have a cheap day.
You know, there's options there.
Sunday is often going...
He loves walking,
he enjoys any fete or garage sale that's on.
He's got a real interest in anything like that.
And perhaps what can be happening is looking at those areas
that would benefit Wayne as far as going to garage sales
to see if there are some things there for his new home
or a whole range of things that he could perhaps do
that don't cost as much money.
OK?
See you then, Sunday sales.
Thank you.
Thanks for turning up, John.
Pleasure, Max.
I'll be tight on my seatbelt, Max.
Right, now I'll be photocopying these minutes
and handing them out to everyone, OK?
OK.
Thanks, everyone.
See you later.
Bye.
No phones on during work time.
Of course not.
Wendy's a very strong personality.
She...
As I said, she'll let you know in certain terms
if she's distressed or she doesn't like anything.
SHE SOBS
She's also an adventurous person.
Even though she's blind, she has to go anything
and will try anything.
She goes to a day service,
and at the day service,
they decided they were going to try go-karts,
and they had to ask permission first of us
to...for her to go on these go-karts.
And I was a little bit worried about it in the beginning
because of Wendy not having sight
and also because you have duty of care,
which says that you have to look for foreseeable...
You're liable if it's foreseeable.
Well, it is foreseeable that she could have an accident,
and she is more likely to have an accident
because she's sightless
and because she hasn't got the same control we've got.
But at the same time,
there's an element of risk in everybody's life.
I mean, she could just as well be hurt
going out in the van and being involved in an accident.
Going to day service.
The thing was, do we take her or don't we take her?
And I decided that, yes, she would go.
And she went, and she absolutely loves go-karts.
She loves the noise.
She likes the wind in her face.
She likes the sounds, the atmosphere.
And she...
When she gets to the actual track,
her personality changes.
She becomes happy as soon as she gets there
because she can smell it and hear it
and she just gets excited.
Yeah, with what you're told to do,
it can be how you perceive it, how everyone perceives it.
But, you know, with duty of care,
it can be a real issue with...
You've got a responsibility for your client,
yourself and the community at large.
So, I mean, I've had one client that's said to me
that he wanted to go skydiving.
So, well, how do we go about this?
So there was a lot of meetings, a lot of planning,
budgeting for the client, and really making sure
that, you know, the person that we were supporting
really wanted to do it and understood.
So there was a lot of training,
like, making sure he understood training,
hired videos for him about skydiving,
that sort of stuff.
He still wanted to do it, which is fantastic.
So we sort of checked out, and there was a few people negative
because they were worried about the duty of care.
But I think basically what it came down to is
we made sure that the people that were doing it with him
were accredited, knew and felt comfortable with the person.
And it was a great success.
Absolutely loved it, had video of it,
and, yeah, never looked back.
But the lead-up to that, you know, your mind was going,
what if something happened?
So it's a calculated risk.
But, yeah, you've got to make sure you try and cover
every aspect of the duty of care issue.
The dilemma of duty of care versus dignity of risk
and supporting people with disabilities
is another thing that comes up every day.
And I think it's just about planning.
You need to risk manage.
You need to actually identify what are the risks,
how can I minimise them and how can I ensure safety?
And usually you can come up with a solution.
No, no, I want him first.
I want him in the water.
You've got to put the water in, OK?
You do it, Mal.
You're going to have a try. You have a try.
I'm presently working with a client who, you know,
you'd be doing the ironing, and he'd say,
can I do the ironing?
And you'd think, well, gee, why not?
It's just that discussions in the past is that,
oh, you know, it's too dangerous to iron,
or they'll make a mess of it, or they won't do it properly.
The whole thing is if they can do something,
we have to help develop those skills.
Whether it's not ironed properly is irrelevant.
You know, you can do it afterwards if you have to.
And they might make a few mistakes.
The particular person that I'm talking about
actually melted his whole shirt
because the staff wasn't looking,
and the next minute we got a hole in the shirt.
But it's all part of learning experience,
and they need to be supervised and encouraged along
to help them to do things independently as possible.
Tear? Yep.
Move those fingers out of the way.
I am, Mum.
Not your Mum, Davey.
We have to make sure they are as safe as possible
while they are learning or attempting to do things.
I mean, our duty of care is to protect the people we support.
But we don't overprotect so they're not going to learn
from their experiences.
It's called a dignity of risk.
We have a monthly meeting with clients,
so we've used standards then,
plus all the other sort of things that's happening in the clients' life.
But generally, yeah, the standards, we review them,
and they're a good resource as well.
Anything that comes up different
that no-one's ever experienced before,
you can actually add to the standards as well to try and...
OK. I think it's your colour, mate.
Yeah, so to get the understanding of it,
it takes a bit of time,
but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty good.
The National Disability Standards are markers of good service quality.
They're what we're aiming at.
They're the benchmarks, the signposts,
for how support workers should be supporting individuals.
That doesn't mean that there aren't problems with the standards
and that there aren't dilemmas and that there aren't conflicts.
As a demonstration, the standards interchange with duty of care,
and they interchange with risk management.
It takes a bit of sorting through,
but ultimately you can end up with a workable solution.
If we didn't have the standards, we wouldn't have the rules,
we wouldn't have the signposts, we wouldn't have the markers.
So I think that they set the standards
for guiding support staff towards quality of services
for the people with disabilities that they support.
I look at the standards as...
I guess it's things that I value.
You know, I value... and it's what I expect,
and I guess it's my rights and it's other people's rights,
you know, to be treated as an individual,
to be able to make my own choices, decision-making, all that,
to be able to access services that I'd like.
I mean, they're rights, they're what we all expect and we all value,
so I just think it's no different to people with disabilities.
I think that the struggle for many of the support workers
is that perhaps management hasn't come to task
with the standards either.
The role of management and boards of governance
is to establish policies and procedures that support the standards,
and from that, support workers are trained
and they adhere to the policies and the guidelines of the organisation.
You have to be very aware that our clients have certain skills,
and even though sometimes it's a lot easier and a lot quicker
for you to assist them,
you have to keep whatever skills they've got.
It isn't fair to take their skills away.
Our job is to enhance the skills that they've got,
to try and keep them.
We have a client who had seizures and lost skills,
and we're now in the process of rebuilding those skills,
and it would be a lot easier to assist this client with food,
put the spoon in and assist her to eat,
but she's quite capable of doing this herself.
It's a long process, and instead of taking you 15 minutes
for her to have a tea, it might take you three quarters of an hour.
That's not the point.
The point is that you have kept the skill that she's got.
If you keep doing it, the client then loses interest
and loses the skill, and you might never ever get it back,
especially with ageing clients, because as they age,
their skills become less anyway.
So the more we reinforce and the longer they keep them,
the better for everybody.
It also keeps the client's mind active, just the same as us.
If you don't use it, you lose it.
Sometimes, you know, with a new person,
they've got their own ideas sort of thing,
and they can try and do too much, and that can be harmful,
but at the same time, it can be good as well,
because you get fresh ideas out of them.
Say, for instance, Wayne, we've had a new person in
and they've decided to try and make him happy,
make life a little bit easier by doing his dishes
and that sort of thing.
So next time someone else comes on and the dishes come up,
Wayne can expect for the support worker to do it for him.
Even though it might seem a small thing for us,
for those clients to have got that far has been a big milestone.
It's not somebody has taken the time and put in the effort
over months, maybe years, to get the skill,
and then somebody who thinks they're just helping the client
and thinks that they're really doing the right thing
and actually doing the wrong thing because they're taking away
the client's dignity.
If that client can assist themselves,
let them assist themselves.
You have to stand back.
With anything, you take a bit of pride,
and it doesn't matter who you are,
you take pride in what you do and what you can do for yourself,
and I think that's the core of living, being able to...
What's the point of living if you're not doing things?
The dishes, not everyone likes doing them,
but at the same time, generally everyone does them.
Everyone's open to an opinion, and they all get tossed around
in the meetings and stuff like that.
But the main thing is consistency for Wayne,
or anyone you support, for them to improve themselves
and be happy with who they are.
Teamwork is important because, like,
with Wendy's eating programme there,
it's a case of everybody reinforcing it.
It's no good one doing one thing, somebody else doing the other.
The client gets confused, they get frustrated,
and you've lost the whole programme because they won't do it.
I first came to one of the houses,
and I was assisting a gentleman with his meal,
and one of the staff member interrupted me to ask me something,
and I stopped and turned around, you know, to talk to her,
and then when I turned back, the person had picked up the spoon
and brought it up to his mouth, and I thought, oh, wow!
Wow, Wendy, how long can he do that?
How long's he been doing that?
Yeah, the other lady, she said, oh, he used to assist himself,
but, I don't know, he stopped for some reason.
And I thought, well, wow, you know, he's got those skills,
he should be using it.
So, yeah, after that, we started to encourage him to assist himself,
and, yeah.
I think this is an excellent example
of how sometimes support workers can do too much.
And what's happened here, I think,
is that maybe the communication between team members
hasn't been as accurate as it could have been,
and this young man has actually learnt to do something on his own,
and no-one has noticed until it's been picked up by this support staff.
So it's imperative that team members talk to one another,
that reporting and communication is accurate,
and that at all times you encourage the client
to actually do as much as they can for themselves.
You know, I think a lot of our work is through observation,
because, you know, the people here are non-verbal,
and so you tend to, yeah, observe people
and see how they respond to different situations,
and, yeah, that's how you get to know them
and their likes and dislikes.
OK, Adrian, would you like to choose what you'd like for breakfast?
OK, we've got porridge, that's OK, and wheat beaks.
I know sometimes Greg sort of gets a bit noisy, you know,
and we'll notice Debbie or Adrian, you know,
giving him sort of dirty looks, and so, you know, we'll say,
OK, Greg, you know, would you like to go outside for a bit of a walk,
or, you know, would you like to watch some TV in your room?
So they've got that opportunity, you know, to spend time alone,
or, yeah, and, you know, it's fair on the other guys as well,
who, you know, might get a bit disturbed with all the noise,
and they've got that opportunity to, you know, go to their room if they like
and have some peace and quiet, or, you know, be out here with the rest of them, so...
Debbie here, you know, I mean, you've got to know when she's upset, you know.
It's not like you and I, we can just say, hey, I'm upset here, I don't like this.
You've got to look at sort of subtle changes in her facial expression,
or, you know, changing her tones in her voice,
and they might be very small, and it takes a lot of observation skills
for people like Debbie here to pick up problems that might be happening
that, you know, that she needs help with,
because she's not able to sort of verbalise like you and I,
and you've got to be so observant about everything, yeah, little things, yeah.
I mean, we always, you know, talk to the guys and, you know,
respond to the way they react, you know, like,
Deborah, you know, may close her mouth, you know,
she's had enough to eat, or, you know, so you just, yeah, you just...
So, OK, Debbie, you know, you've had enough to eat, that's fine, yeah.
You just, yeah, communicate with them all the time.
Some clients will eat breakfast, some clients won't.
You've got no right to force your choices on our clients.
If a client can tell you, I don't want it, then they don't want it.
And I'm sure you wouldn't like somebody pushing your food in your folds
if you didn't want it, would you?
So it's exactly the same.
The clients will let you know if they want to eat.
If they've had enough to eat, they'll stop eating.
If they want more, they'll let you know they want more.
So you play everything by ear and accept the person as an individual.
I was working with this individual who could make choices.
He used to choose his clothes in the morning,
bring out a couple of items and ask him to, you know, touch whichever one
he wanted to wear that day, and he'd put his hand out and touch the item.
Same with his cereal, you know, I used to ask him what cereal he liked
by holding two boxes of cereal, and he'd reach out and he'd touch
the one that he wanted, and I thought, great, you know,
he's actually making his choices.
And we had this new casual start, and I showed the person how he makes his choices,
and then a few days later I was working with this staff member
and he wasn't offering him choices.
Hang on a minute, this person can make choices, you know,
and he said, no he can't, and I said, he can.
I showed you how he can indicate his choices.
He goes, no he can't.
So I went through and showed him exactly how he does it,
and the individual chose what he wanted to eat for breakfast.
And I said, see he does, you know, he can make these choices.
And a couple of days later I worked with this person again,
same thing happened again, I was watching him and he wasn't offering him the choices,
and I said, look, you know, he can do it.
And in the end we sort of talked, you know, sat there and I guess in a way argued about it,
and this staff member wasn't working as a team member,
and he wasn't respecting the individuals in the house,
and that they can make choices and, you know, can do things.
He just wanted to, I think he was just basically there for the money,
just to do his work, you know, get it done quickly and then leave.
But, you know, we're all there for a reason, you know,
we work in this area because, you know, we want to help people become independent
and, you know, learn from their experiences.
I mean, you know, this individual had no opportunities, you know,
he wasn't given the opportunities to make choices.
Yeah, so, you know, one of the things that are important is teamwork,
is, you know, everyone needs to work together towards the same goal,
and that's, you know, encouraging people to be independent. Yeah.
Some of the dilemmas you might come across is that there,
you have different views on sexuality than a client that you're supporting.
You may be supporting someone who prefers a same-sex relationship
or actually prefers a relationship with someone that you don't think is completely desirable.
You may be asked to actually support someone,
attend a religious gathering that you have some personal struggles with.
You may be actually asked to have dietary issues within a home environment
that clients can only eat a certain thing.
You can't impose your own will upon someone.
Certainly, I'd like to think that some major things could be part of a negotiation,
but basically, you leave your values at home when you clock on at work,
you're there supporting that individual.
MUSIC
That's nice. That is a good shot, Wayne.
This man. You know who that is. You just spent the day with him today.
Mr. Don. John. He's your support worker.
Mr. Jeff. Yeah, he's drinking beer.
In my general working environment, I find the standards are very helpful.
What was I thinking? I learned in Los Angeles.
The standard regarding the confidentiality, I think, is really, really important
and something that I struggle with at times.
It's very easy to get caught up discussing someone's personal life.
Well, we know who that is. Is that Elvis?
LAUGHTER
Looks good. Guitar?
Barry's sitting there.
For instance, at a client support meeting, there'd be time for a coffee break or whatnot
and there'd be that group conversation because we do know most of the clients
that are with this organisation, but we don't all work with them.
So if we mention a name, we can automatically click in
and I associate the name to what they're talking about
and it's very easy to get involved in sometimes some personal matters
and it's very easy to fall into that trap,
but unfortunately human nature takes over a lot of this work.
As a support worker, you need to know what's actually happening with the client's life.
It's because you want a consistency on what's being done in the home,
especially on a 24-hour house.
It's even harder on them because you work in isolation.
So it's important when the next person comes on
that you've given them a reasonable indication of what's happened for the day,
how your client is faring, happy, that sort of thing.
Definitely health issues, anything like that.
Communication book, accountability.
That is the one thing I've noticed that's changed a lot since I first started.
Accountability of what's actually being written and how it's documented.
So yeah, they're all new issues, so there's plenty.
There's always training on what to put in, what not to put in, how to word things.
You're forever thinking about how you're going to put things.
Confidentiality is a real issue in any sort of service,
dealing with human beings, it's a real thing.
It's not like you're working on a production line or something like that
and you're talking about whatever with anyone,
when you're working with people in human lives.
I wouldn't like to be talked about by anyone.
My wife, she's got a general idea of what I do, but she doesn't know what I do.
So that can be difficult in a sense.
Debriefing with your team members is a very good thing.
It gets it off your chest and you know it's confidential
within that group and the people that work with the person you're supporting.
So I highly recommend debriefing.
Recharge your batteries.
If you need to break, express that and discuss with your teammates
that you're having struggles with any certain area.
It's okay to feel that, absolutely.
Everyone goes through it.
So I think that's a good thing of being able to understand that.
When we're talking about the standard around client confidentiality,
it's been given some added weight by the new National Privacy Act.
Support staff need to be really mindful of this.
I think that organisations would have new policies and procedures in place
because essentially it's been a tightening on the information interchange.
That has affected that standard quite dramatically.
So I'd encourage support staff to actually talk to their management
about what the policies around implementation of the new National Privacy Act are.
What do you like?
Rock and roll.
He likes dancing.
He's a very social guy.
He likes getting out and partying.
What else do you like to do?
What else do you do in your week?
We like to go fishing.
We first met Wayne getting the bait on the hook and the casting and that sort of stuff.
We've still yet to master the casting, but it's a slow process and a bit of fun doing it.
He loves catching the fish.
Yeah, and cooking it up.
Swimming, and aqua-roving, all that sort of stuff.
Very active, bushwalking, hiking, he's forever out and about.
Anything that's meeting new people, Wayne really gets something out of it, which is good to see.
I'd love this guy, I'd love to have his social life.
He's really, I don't know how he keeps up.
Oh!
It's making a bit of noise isn't it?
Once every couple of weeks there'd be a big busload of, you know,
there'd be a big bus that would pull up and a whole group of people would go out together.
And yeah, which wasn't really good because people in the community sort of couldn't cope with a,
you know, a mass amount of people in wheelchairs, you know.
And so yeah, it wasn't a very good way of introducing other people, you know, to people with disabilities.
It was just too overwhelming.
I'm all for participation and integration.
You know, our clients have a right to be in the community.
Our clients have a right, the same as everybody else, to be wherever they choose to be.
But I think the community has great difficulty in accepting our clients.
If you go to a café with somebody with disabilities,
you can get two reactions.
Either people will look the other way, turn round anywhere as long as I don't have to look at this person,
or they'll stare, or they'll actually get up and leave.
I remember once going down to Glenelg and people just, as soon as we got off the bus and was walking around,
people just looked and then just moved away, you know, they just, yeah, just overwhelmed.
Our clients are very aware of what's going on around them, even though they might not communicate,
they are aware of what's going on around them.
So if you get up and walk away, Wendy will speak to you, some people will answer, a lot of people won't,
because they don't know what to say to her.
She'll say hello, what's your name, and they'll go, oh, and smile, and quick, and they're gone.
Which, if they did that to you, you clustered, that was very rude.
I can see where they're coming from, because as I said before, I was fearful myself once.
When I was young, the only thing I ever knew about people with disabilities is they all wore the same shoes,
because my mother used to push her head down, don't look.
And I think that a lot of the time, this, that kind of thinking still exists.
People say don't stare, so they turn their children the other way.
It would be much better if they let their children come up and ask, what's wrong?
One client you might slide in there, and okay, you can be an obtrusive in a corner somewhere.
If you've got four or five people, that's a different kettle of fish altogether, then people become really uncomfortable.
We're all doing the right thing in encouraging and supporting clients to access community facilities,
and sometimes that is seen to be incredibly uncomfortable.
I also think that she raised a good point, it's about how you do it.
That certainly going out in large groups will draw attention,
and that if we can do single support of people out in the community,
the less obtrusive and more easily integrated.
I am hopeful, I think that situation is changing.
I'm very encouraged by the younger generation who in many respects don't bat an eyelid.
So I think Val's right, but I think it's how we structure our participation and integration in the community.
I was supporting a client, and we would go to a lot of barbecues or a poor power showdown functions,
and would go to the footy with a group of my friends and whatnot.
At the time, this person was making a load of friends, it was great.
We have a policy that your life is strictly a working relationship.
We were told from the start that if you aren't their friend, you're paid to be in their life.
By us attending a friend's barbecue when I was working, they felt that was meeting my needs.
To an extent it probably was, but if I had a video camera to video that, and I've got lots of photos and whatnot,
but if you could see the actual enjoyment that that person gets out of at that particular time, it's hard to juggle.
Obviously we're not in this industry forever, and we're told right from the start that we're paid to be in their life.
You develop an obvious friendship, but as far as friends go, yeah, we're paid to be in their life.
If we do finally leave the organization, the issue of involving them that much and then just going and never to be seen again
would also be setting a person up for failure, which I do agree with, but at the time I would much rather them getting out and about
and really enjoying and absorbing what quality of life, and that's what we are about.
The role of support workers when they're establishing friendships or relationships with their client group or consumers is very confusing.
It's extremely confusing for clients. Where does friendship end and support work start?
It's always very sensible to actually approach this like you would anything else. Go to your manager.
Talk about the fact that you would actually like to socialize with someone that you're working with,
and I know that in my own situation that has occurred, and I've encouraged these staff to actually work with somebody else.
It's not appropriate for the support worker to also have a social relationship with someone,
but it doesn't mean that the relationship has to stop. It means it's managed differently.
There's been some issues with Wayne when Christmas comes up,
and so we're very careful with what sort of shopping centers we go to just for the reason that Wayne still likes to go up,
wait in the line for Santa, sit up on his knee and that sort of thing.
So you've got a quite elderly gentleman drawing some really attention to himself.
He's very intuitive and he's very quick, and any opportunity he will take that to go and sit on Santa or whatnot.
So whatever reason it could be, if there's that teamwork that everyone at the start knows that really encourage that that doesn't happen,
come back here, put a beard on and have a ball out the back, set up your own castle by all means.
But it doesn't look good when an adult, any adult for that matter,
is standing in a queue with 40 little kids waiting for a present.
Some people might say, well if that's what he wants to do, do it,
but you've got to look at how the community actually looks at him when he's standing or trying to sit on Santa's knee,
and what does he get out of it, but at the same time what sort of attention is drawn to him and what the community get out of it as well.
People then will point the finger and say, oh there's just another disabled person.
Look at him, he's 60, he's got a beard and he's got butterflies all over his face and he looks like a little lion king.
He's a little precious little man.
I do agree that that's not what we're about and if opposed to he could come back here
and we can get some paints and some pastels and he can do himself up in his own environment,
own home and still get a big kick out of it, no one has to see or know about it
and there won't be values and judgements put upon this person.
There's ways you can get around it, it's just a matter of working out how.
Team consistency again, sorry it's a big one, teamwork, it's a good one.
Indeed there's always a conflict between what the client wants to do
and what as support workers we believe is philosophically sound in supporting our client group.
I don't know of a support worker that hasn't been stuck in that cleft stick
when clients at Christmas want to go and sit on Santa's knee or at Easter,
want to have the Easter bunny or they want to engage in things like face painting
when it's at the mall down the street or whatever and it certainly is a struggle.
I think some of the things that people forget about is that developmentally a number of our clients
are actually operating at a level they find really comfortable.
So simple activities that are bright and surrounded by lots of lab news
are actually quite enjoyable to a number of people who don't have many skills.
So that's the first thing to think about is it's actually an enjoyable activity.
The damage that it actually does to a person's image by that happening out in the community
or where the community can see them can often be irreparable
and what it does is reinforce the stereotype of adult people with disabilities being children
and that's simply not the case.
I would be suggesting in those situations that support workers think very carefully
about how they can structure meaningful activities that are based on those simple principles
of brightness, loudness, enjoyability in a home setting.
At the same time have a parallel education program about we're going out and you are an adult
and this is how we want the world to see you.
When I first started working here when I was in the wheelchair and I came in and I was very patronised.
Hello dear, what did you say? What are you doing?
Why are you bending?
And then I realised that I didn't need to bend to Wendy.
Wendy can speak to me quite well face to face.
I don't have to bend down to her.
Nobody will come. I get annoyed if tall people bend down to me like that.
She got annoyed too didn't you?
And she let me know in own certain terms.
Why are you doing this?
There's two of them in you being glamorous.
You put your make-up on special for that didn't you?
That's your eyes.
Our work setting is our client's home and this is their home.
We have four ladies in this house and we'd just be like four people flatting
for individuals taking a house and sharing it.
They share the costs, they share everything.
The only thing is our clients have disabilities so they need somebody to do things for them.
So they employ us to do the things that they can't do.
So we assist them with meals, we assist them with everything they can't do
but this is their home, the same as your home is your home.
If a staff member comes in and takes the wrong attitude,
well either the staff member has to be talked to and explained to that
this is the client's home, not your home.
This is not a factory or an institution, this is their home.
If you had somebody in your home who came in and was disruptive, you would remove them.
Well the same thing applies.
If you can't work in this setting then maybe you shouldn't be here,
you should be somewhere else doing something else.
This is somebody's home.
Yeah well I suppose in eight years in this industry I hadn't had any complaints of that matter.
In fact quite the opposite where I've always had a really good rapport with the people I support.
Until recently I suppose Wayne, probably in the last maybe three months
there's been two or three complaints actually from yourself.
You've been to see Anne and Liz about some things that you're not happy with,
which I thought was fantastic.
I thought it was really good for Wayne to do that, it takes a lot of courage to do that.
I thought it was wonderful when the first complaint, which did happen a couple of months ago,
we got down to the bottom of it and worked out what was wrong and what could I do
or what could he do that would make our work relationship easier.
It's been a bit hairy but to see that person first and then if you're still not happy with it,
definitely do what you did Wayne, it's great.
See management and yeah work it out or in this case your client service manager and work it out.
I think it's excellent, very courageous and yeah very honest.
Well done, complain more. Lovely.
It's a really hard area isn't it, it's really difficult because you're trying to do the best job you can
and suddenly somebody's got a complaint and nobody likes to be complained about.
On the other hand it's excellent that a client is within an organisation,
it feels comfortable enough to lodge a complaint.
It has many facets to it but broadly speaking commenting on that situation particularly,
also management need to have a role here in limiting the damage control to staff.
It's great, we want the client to have a really good outcome from their complaint
and see that it's absolutely right that they bring complaints to management.
On the other hand management has a responsibility to their support workers
to have them feeling not too damaged by the whole event because it is very difficult not to be.
Our clients are individuals and the same as us, you don't get on with everybody you meet or you work with
and you'll have personality clashes with.
If it becomes a big problem I think then the staff member has to move on, go to a different place
because it would be the same as somebody in your house, you wouldn't have somebody in your house
who as soon as you're seen would put you back up would you?
You'd say well I'm sorry this is my home, you leave.
So it's the same thing applies I think.
Tracy had a care worker who was a young male.
Tracy's 26 years old, she liked him a lot, she thought he was lovely.
Tracy, yeah you know I'm talking about that don't you?
Yeah she liked Paul a lot and she was quite happy for him to do everything with her except the personal care.
Now the only way she could tell us that she didn't like him doing her personal care was to scream.
So every time this poor guy went in there she screamed and let us know she wasn't happy.
So it got to be a bit of a worry so two female care workers, myself and another care worker,
went in and asked Tracy if she says yes or no.
Sometimes she'll demonstrate it, sometimes she won't.
With her eyes, if she blinks over this side is a yes and if she blinks on the left hand side it's a no.
And we went in and we questioned her as to why and the first question we asked her was,
does she like this care worker? She said yes.
We said, does it hurt you? She said no.
We said, does it upset you? Yes.
And then came a really difficult phase because we weren't sure how to go to the next question,
what do we say, what can we say?
So then the other care worker was actually the manager you then said, does he embarrass you?
She said yes.
And we said, while you're eating? No.
While you're drinking? Yeah, you know don't you?
While you're drinking? No.
Is it your personal care that embarrasses you? Yes.
And that was all it took, simple questions and yes no answers and we found out what the problem was.
From then on in we spoke to the care worker and asked them not to do her personal care, we'd do it,
to do everything else. She loved him to take her out, she liked going out with him didn't you?
And she liked to be assisted with him at meal times but nothing to do with her personal care, we did that then.
So females took that role over and Tracy was quite happy.
It turned out that Tracy more than liked Paul and she was embarrassed with him doing her personal care.
You have to take into consideration she's 26 years old, I don't think I'd like it either if I really liked the guy.
So the care worker then was able to do everything else with her but one of the female care workers did her personal care when he was here.
That way he was happy, Tracy was happy and it made it more comfortable for everybody
and we never had another problem with it.
But that's the sort of thing that you have to look for and realise that when clients do things that are abnormal,
such as this was screaming every time this care worker entered the bedroom on his own,
that there's a reason for it and you have to find the reason and sometimes being the society that we are you can get the wrong idea.
So you have to be very careful because it can put people in very difficult situations.
I think more so for males than female care workers, they have to be exemplary.
Hi Deb, how are you going?
How are you doing with your mum?
Hi Raylene.
How are you going down?
How are you doing?
Oh come over here, miss.
How have you been?
Good.
How's she been Raylene?
Very nice isn't it?
A bit of a red head there.
Honey blonde.
Lovely.
Trust is one of the really important aspects.
You know, unless someone trusts you, you're doing such personal things with them
that the average person just does not do.
And to have that trust is really fundamental in a relationship for Deborah, I believe, and for everybody.
Yeah, it's, if you don't trust anybody, how are you going to be happy?
How are you going to have a good quality of life?
Trust takes time and effort and you're pushing them around in a wheelchair
and they've got to trust that you're not going to be going too fast or push them into the traffic.
It's a really debilitating feeling to be not in control of your own faculties.
And so you do trust and rely on other people.
I've often said, because of my personal involvement with people with disabilities and high support needs,
that just remember that this person is someone's daughter or son and it can happen to anybody.
And how would you like your child, although they're adults to me, she's my child,
how would you like your child to be treated if they were in care?
It comes from the heart, really.
But as a house manager, I would push the dignity and respect of people with high support needs
and their individuality, the fact that they still need choices, they need experience of life
because they haven't had a lot of experience in life in the past.
They've been disabled by that or by the fact that they can't do what you or I can do.
They lack their learning because they haven't had the experiences.
And if we can bring as much experience to their lives as possible, they'll grow.
There was a person that I was supporting who, because of his physical disability,
he had quite severe deformities of his limbs and they made a wheelchair
so he could sit upright to be transported into the day service.
But unfortunately his knees and his elbows used to sort of jut out a little bit.
There was a bus driver who was really horrible and she used to push him through the back door of the van
scraping his knees and his elbows.
And she used to curse and swear at him and call him names
because of the hassle of trying to get him loaded into the van.
The lad was quite distressed by it all and he had bruises all over his knees and that.
I remember his mum rang me up one day and she was really upset about it
and she said, you know, why does she treat him like that? He can't help it.
And I said, I know that. And I said, you know, you need to say something about it.
You need to go to the manager and say how you feel.
And she goes, no, no, no, I don't want to cause a fuss.
And I said, but you need to say something. She shouldn't get away with this.
And she goes, no, no, I don't want to cause any strife. No, I can't, you know.
So in the end I went to the manager and I explained to her what was happening with this person
and the fact that this bus driver was physically and verbally abusing him.
And she just sat there and looked at me and she said,
well, this bus driver has got a wonderful driving record.
She's never been picked up for speeding. She's always been a good bus driver.
She's always done the driving for us for so many years.
I don't want to do anything about it.
And I said, but this poor person, this poor lad is getting hurt by her.
And she just stood there and looked at me and she said, I'm not doing anything about it.
This person's got a really good driving record and I'm just not going to do anything about it.
I didn't do anything. I left. I ended up leaving the service.
And that's something that I have to live with.
I think about it all the time.
And I just think I should have done something. I should have gone further.
I should have gone over her head.
But I guess at that time I sort of didn't know who else.
I didn't realise that because I was a lot younger then. I didn't realise that you could go further.
To me that she was my boss and she's the one that says what goes.
But yeah, I'm hoping that I've learnt something from that
and that if I ever see anything like that again I'll stand up and take it further.
It's pretty horrific isn't it? And unfortunately it's often not isolated.
Standard 12 was developed exactly for that sort of situation.
What's happening to that person in that situation is he's being assaulted.
It's actually against the law.
So first and foremost it's an illegal act.
The staff member was absolutely right. She had a duty of care to maintain.
And it was disappointing to see the attitude of the manager.
I think what it also pointed out is that complaints and grievance mechanisms
for organisations in supporting the stand should be user friendly.
I was concerned that that mum felt very uncomfortable about raising her complaint,
and effectively about assault of her son.
I've seen a big difference in Debbie myself over the last ten years
since she's been at Lovita. She has blossomed. She's happier. She's content.
You can see it in her face when she's happy and looking that is.
Yeah, it's just treat these people that you're supporting
how you would expect to be treated if you were in the same position.
I think that's really...because we're a profession of compassion, of empathy, of need.
And we need to push that as well as making them independent as possible
and to have a good quality of life.
You have to scrutinise yourself and say is this what I really want?
Because if you're just in this for the money, don't bother.
The money's no good. And you'll get nothing out of it.
If you're in it because you love it, you'll get all the satisfaction in the world.
You'll go home at night and think you've done a good day's work
and you'll feel happy with yourself.
But you've got to have your heart in it if you haven't.
It's hard. It's heavy. It's not an easy job.
So if you're honest with yourself, you'll just say, no, this is not for me.
You haven't lost anything. You haven't made yourself look a fool.
If you keep doing it and you don't really like it, you're not happy.
You're not happy. Our clients pick up on atmospheres.
They'll know you're not happy. They won't be happy.
So you won't get the best out of them anyway.
To a new support worker coming into the field, I give them a hearty welcome
because they're about to enter working in a field that is always dynamic,
always interesting and always challenging and will never be boring.
When I talk to our new workers or students, I usually use a catchphrase
which I think is very true.
Please think carefully about your role because you have one of the most
important jobs on the planet and that's about supporting another individual
in living their life.
I take that very seriously and you often wonder whether you're doing it right.
The standards have their role as those markers, those benchmarks,
those signposts in helping you do that.
For staff that have been around for a long time, such as myself,
it's really easy to lose the plot.
It's really easy to go off on your own tangent and say, I know better,
and to start ensuring that people do things your way or start living your life
through other people. That's not what we're about.
The standards in that situation are a good reminder that people with disabilities
actually have a right to be supported well in living their life.
Ready to sing this one, Tim? Click goes the cheers boys.
Want to sing that? Yeah.
Very good singing, Tim.
That was your own lyrics.
Thank you.