Aged & Disability Services Review

City of Greater Dandenong

The Project

Conversation Co was engaged by the City of Greater Dandenong to support and deliver an engagement surrounding the review of Council’s aged and disability support services provided through the Commonwealth Home Support Program CHSP.

We partnered with Max Hardy Consulting and Deliberately Engaging to support a multiphase engagement and deliberative process to guide Council decision making in the context of Federal Government reform to aged care.

Purpose of Engagement

  • Understand the needs and experiences of community members aged 55 and over using Council’s aged care services.

  • Understand the needs and experiences of community members aged under 55 using Council’s disability services.

  • Understand the emerging needs and aspirations of residents aged 55+ to lead a healthy and engaged life.

  • Determine Council’s role in delivering services, programs and infrastructure to support older residents and residents with a disability.

  • Inform future planning and development of the Positive Ageing Strategy and decision making post the reform (likely 2024).

For this project, we used a mixed-methods methodology:

  • Quantitative data through online surveys.

  • Qualitative data through interviews, staff workshops and in-person pop-up events to explore the story behind the data.

  • Deliberative panel process to collaboratively inform Council decision making.

Outcomes

  • We heard from 1,381 participants in this engagement process including: community members, staff members and service providers across all Dandenong suburbs.

  • 58% of resident participants were born overseas with representation from over 40 different countries of birth. 40% of participants spoke languages other than English with over 35 languages represented reflecting the rich diversity of the City of Greater Dandenong.

  • Good representation of participants receiving disability support services.

  • The first phase of engagement pointed to the importance of social connection through group activities and one on one social support for community members, carers and staff, the need for increased system navigation and access support and preference for personal contact or correspondent to increase trust and ensure services were appropriate for individuals’ unique needs.

  • The deliberative panel process developed a criteria for decision making, a report on community needs and aspirations for future aged and disability care services for Council to consider and guidance on a number of options that would be preferred by the community for aged and disability services.

Challenges

  • Speaking about ageing and disability can be an uncomfortable or taboo topic, much of our work in this space was focused on building confidence in the process and creating safe environments for people to safely share their experiences.

  • Supporting an understanding of the complex aged-care system among participants of all ages and interests in aged and disability care, from diverse backgrounds, and CALD backgrounds.

  • Reaching linguistically diverse cohorts and working with culturally diverse communities in which ageing and care are understood and experienced differently.

  • Consistent messaging and care within a changing environment in which there are many structural changes, changes to workplaces and the potential loss of jobs and staff.

Keys to Success

  • Providing different streams of engagement for different levels of expertise, experience and interest to support a nuanced understanding of a complex environment with many actors.

  • Providing one-on-one engagement with experienced facilitators to create a supportive environment for discussing personal or taboo topics safely.

  • A mixture of presentation, learning, group work and one-on-one support to enhance community engagement with deliberative process.

  • Strong personalised communications of engagement activities to reach older community members.