In 2022, thought-leaders with a proven track record joined Juniper Home and Community Care to build a strong foundation for future growth and quality service to continue living independently, connected to their community, at home for longer.

“For us, a life well lived is defined differently for each client. We strive to be great at getting to know and understand our clients so we can put strategies in place to reach their goals to enable them to stay at home for as long as possible,” Juniper Home Care and Retirement Living Director Angie Slater said.

A continuum of care experience is at the forefront of the team’s approach.

“For a client, it shouldn’t matter who they speak to at Juniper, they should feel that their care needs and the support and service provision they are getting is unique to them,” Angie said.

Significant inroads were made in breaking down silos across the assessment experience to provide clients with a seamless journey.

“We know what happened last week, or last month and so on and that needs to be considered when we are engaging with people, so they don’t feel the need to retell their story each time,” Angie said.

A year of growth

Home and Community Care underwent significant growth this year. Package coordination support, administration and scheduling teams all doubled in size to support growth in demand for Commonwealth Home Support Plans and Home Care Packages, and to underpin quality in service delivery.

Processes were streamlined and the leadership team across administration, package coordination support, staff, rostering and clinical were brought together to work closely to achieve quality service.

Significant roads were made into building connections across the Kimberley with National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program (NATSIFAC) funding secured for Home Care.

Reablement approach

An advocate for reablement, this year Angie brought her award-winning work and passion to Juniper.

“A decade ago, the thought was the more you do for people the longer they can stay at home. The evidence now suggests the opposite. ‘Doing for’ means we are taking away from someone so support needs to be approached with a very different mindset,” she said.

“Reablement is about time-limited, targeted interventions to achieve a goal, but it is also about thinking about how we can adapt support to empower a client to continue to enjoy a meaningful quality of life”.

“For example, a client may want to continue getting out in the community but have lost their confidence physically. In a case like this, we look at the barriers to their social connectiveness.

“You could go down the path that restricts that person’s options – offering transport only during service times. Or we can investigate and see their confidence may be down getting on and off the bus. We
can then get their Support Worker to accompany them on the bus and build their confidence to a point where eventually they can do it independently. That way they can maintain their social connectedness and have choice and control over their movements.”

Angie said it was critical to put in place the correct supports that the Juniper team partner with clients and their carers to understand their journey so supports areplanned, less reactive and not allowing a
client to reach crisis point.

Holistic care

Holistic care is an important philosophy for the Juniper Home and Community Care team.

“We want to be known for viewing the holistic care needs of a client, rather than a narrow approach of simply servicing a referral,” Angie said.

“We may have a client that comes to us with a referral for domestic assistance so you could simply just look at that. But we want our people to be all-rounded, holistic thinkers that are always striving to keep people in their home and connected to their communities.”

Identifying small changes early, implementing the correct targeted support and approaching care that looks at the whole person – physical and mental wellbeing – is intrinsic to holistic care.

“We couple this with an interdisciplinary team that is responsive to needs. An interdisciplinary team places a person’s needs and goals at the centre and works towards them with evidence-based
decisions regardless of what discipline they come from,” she said.

“We put the client at the centre of our decisions. Their experience and level of care needs to be exactly the same as what we would want for our own relatives.”

The strength of community

A sense of community, of belonging, is the foundation of Juniper’s retirement living locations across Perth.

Community has been nurtured by the residents of our retirement living, from forming social clubs, forging friendships, and possessing that care and compassion to look out for one another.