Invitation to participate in engagements on in-home aged care reforms
The Department of Health and Aged Care has engaged Winangali, to lead and design engagements with the First Nations communities and service providers. The Winangali team will conduct a series of workshops with current First Nations home care package (HCP) and Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) recipients. Workshops will also be held with First Nations community organisations and organisations which specialise in providing care to First Nations people.
Their engagement methodology is developed in line with the Closing the Gap, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety recommendations. These engagements will ensure that the design of in-home aged care and assessments is shaped and influenced by First Nations people for First Nations people to meet their needs.
The team from Winangali will reach out to you for help in connecting with First Nations elders if you are:
• a First Nations service provider or organisation which specialises in delivering services to First Nations people, or
• a HCP or CHSP provider who provides services to First Nations people.
Winangali will explain further how the consultations will be undertaken and what is involved. It is expected that workshops will be conducted in person, in various locations throughout January and February 2023.
Please email Winangali at info@winangali.com.au to advise Noel and his team of contact/s within your organisation with whom he could liaise, regarding the upcoming engagements.
Background: As you may be aware, a discussion paper on the new program for in-home aged care was published on 18 October 2022. Feedback was received from Indigenous stakeholders, which included indigenous owned providers and providers who specialise in providing services for Indigenous elders. The majority of feedback received expressed that the proposed model may undermine the goal to increase culturally safe service delivery to meet the needs of First Nations people. As a result, the Department would now like to hear from First Nations elders and service providers on alternative in-home care delivery models for First Nations elders. In addition, in response to the final report from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the Government has agreed to establish Indigenous-specific aged care assessment organisations to provide culturally safe aged care assessments for First Nations people.
We would like to encourage First Nations community organisations and organisations specialising in the provision of care to First Nations elders to consider delivering aged care services to their communities. We would also like to hear from First Nations service providers on how regional networks of assessment services could be established.
Should you wish to understand more about the reforms, please do not hesitate to contact the Department at SAH.implementation@health.gov.au
