Warrina Village Hostel, NSW - Resiaction - awarded 2009

Resiaction

Resiaction encourages and supports residents to volunteer to undertake tasks in their home. Quality outcomes for residents have included increased physical activity, sense of purpose and enhanced social capital. The implementation of the program has required passion and tenacity, not only from staff but also from residents determined to make it work and be seen in a light different from the stereotypical aged care recipient. The program has overcome many bureaucratic regulations which cocoon residents from risk and limit their choices.

Residents do real jobs that directly contribute to the better functioning and greater cohesion of their communities. Some residents volunteer for tasks that utilise their skills and experiences, while others seek to learn something new. Procedures have been developed to provide guidance to residents on the activities they undertake.

In aged care we really need to understand the importance of the idea of interdependence and reciprocity. Typically, aged care recipients feel they are in dependent relationships where they feel powerless and exhibit low morale. This program has sought to overcome the idea of learned helplessness where the resident is seen as a passive user of a service; a view which may actually contribute to the higher levels of depression found in aged care facilities.

Resiaction has seen residents granted an increased sense of independence, autonomy and control over their home resulting in various and numerous resident driven changes and improvements. It has been a program that has crossed the spectrum of frailty; for any resident there can be a job. It has provided a reason to get up in the morning and an external focus which has gone a long way towards breaking that cycle of insular self absorbed thinking. The earlier feeling of residents being in someone else’s workplace has altered to a resident now feeling more in control of their home, and the idea of ageing in place has become one of living in place.

We have overcome huge obstacles such as staff culture, risk and boundaries. We have had to challenge assumptions of dependence and disengagement and checked that systems and culture no longer view people as categories, rather that they are still people with a desire and a need to contribute.

Resiaction found out what residents wanted and assisted them to create their own community, with staff helping and assisting rather than directing and controlling. As model of care, Resiaction challenges our current task focus which emphasises doing things the right way and demands that we consider our moral responsibility to do the right thing.