“I can’t cook anymore”, “I don’t dance anymore”, “I can’t go watch the grandkids at footy anymore”.

The “can’t” and the “don’t” are words often heard when first partnering with Home Care customers. Getting old is often not easy and we find ourselves no longer able to enjoy the things we so often did before. Our approach at Juniper is to look at the “why” behind the cant’s and don’ts and create a care plan that helps you work towards changing that into “I can” and “I do”.

At Juniper, we call this a reablement approach. Reablement refers to maintaining or improving a person’s function with targeted interventions over a period of time, so they can achieve their goals, and ultimately lead to an improved quality of life.

What’s important to you? What did you used to enjoy doing that you feel you can’t anymore? These can be big things like past passions you would like to do again, such as dancing , taking a dip at the local beach or walking the dog. They can also be everyday activities that are important to you, like confidently being able to shower yourself or getting in and out of a car.

Often those small things can make big life differences. The ability to get in and out of a car and walk unaided for a few minutes might mean you are able to return to your local community centre to catch-up with friends. Or it might mean you can watch your grandkids play netball on Saturdays.

Let’s build a partnership and explore what you can do. By looking at what you can do, we can build on this, hitting smaller milestones until we reach your big goal.  Our role includes giving you the confidence both physically and mentally, to take the steps to start pursuing those goals.

Often in life, we can be our own worst critic. A fall, a near-miss, a loss of strength can erode our confidence, so we stop doing tasks or those things that bring us joy. Difficulty holding a knife might mean we don’t pursue our love of cooking anymore. Difficulty having the strength to lift our walker in and out of the car means we don’t visit the shops anymore. Worrying about a fall means we don’t walk to the local park to enjoy nature.

Partnering with Juniper and taking a reablement approach can address the physical and build on confidence.

At Juniper we believe the biggest expert we have in our Home Care team is our customer. We hold up the adage “decisions around me should include me’. You are an expert in your own life and that’s why we take those conversations when we discover your goals seriously. We love it when the people around you – family and friends – get involved so they can support you.

Of course, life doesn’t stay the same. Our health changes, incidents happen, what we enjoy can change. At Juniper, we see it as important that we are able to reassess, reset and tweak care plans so they continue adapting with you.