Organisations have an important role in enabling, supporting, and encouraging their staff with self-care. As part of developing the Self-care room, we talked to many different people working in aged care and they recognised that self-care is more than an individual’s responsibility. Read what they identified as important.
Organisational responsibility is inherent in the Aged Care Standards. Standard 7 states “The organisation has a workforce that is sufficient, and is skilled and qualified to provide safe, respectful and quality care and services.” Self-care is a skill that contributes towards positively to care quality and consumer outcomes, and investment in self-care supports for your staff will help you to meet this responsibility.
Exposure to death and dying is unavoidable for aged care staff. About 90% of people aged over 85 years will die in residential aged care or hospital. The National Palliative Care standards (Standard 9) advises health services to ensure “staff are trained in self-care strategies and advised on how to access personal support.”
Death and dying is part of your business and staff are affected by their experiences of caring for older people who are at the end of life.
You have a responsibility to support your staff. To help you with this responsibility, we’ve created a list of ideas that were shared with us.
Download our list and identify three ways you will get started with supporting staff to cope with death and dying.
Download getting started list
Check out the SOLAR program. Developed by Phoenix Australia, SOLAR is an online program for employees of aged care services who want to build skills for emotional resilience and recover after stressful events and trauma.
Remember to check back here next year. We will be developing toolkits for managers and organisations.
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Page updated 16 December 2021