Salvos Home Care, The Salvation Army Aged Care’s in-home care division, offers a range of services to support clients to live independently in their own home.
The service works with clients and their families to develop personalised plans based on individual need, which can be adjusted at any time and are focused on enhancing a client’s independence, health and wellbeing.
General Manager Fiona Sanders said as people aged, certain things that they did in their life could become more difficult for a variety of reasons.
“This might be because of declining mobility, or because of the way the house is set up, or the usual social support network is no longer available, or possibly even because they’re becoming a little bit forgetful,” she said.
“So, the idea of tapping into a funded home care service is just to make life easier.”
Sanders said there was a vast range of options available to meet the individual needs of each client.
“We provide a full range of services at Salvos Home Care; it’s a bit of a one-stop-shop,” she said.
“We work with our clients to co-ordinate whatever services they might need.”
She said the most common services for older people were domestic assistance and gardening.
“These are the sort of things that people struggle with, perhaps before anything else,” she said.
“It might be hanging the washing on the line, mowing the lawns and weeding, or keeping the house nice and clean and tidy, it might be making the bed.
“The next item is probably around social support; assisting people to go shopping, or to access community services to do the things that they may enjoy.
“It might be to go to a social group, take them to church, or take them on an outing.”
Other popular services provided include physiotherapy, podiatry, personal care such as showering people and helping them to dress, and clinical care such as wound care and helping people with medications.
Sanders said the first step was to call My Aged Care and register, and then have an ACAT (Aged Care Assessment Team) assessment.
The Aged Care Assessment Team will make suggestions for what services might be available and what sort of funding is available.
“We’ve been providing care for over 140 years at The Salvation Army and our Home Care division is diverse,” she said.
“All our staff are fully qualified.
“They participate in regular training; they are police checked and we’ve got a great team of support staff to make sure that the team are well looked after and that they care for people properly in the home.”
Salvos Home Care provides services on the Central Coast.
To learn more, call 1300 111 227 or email agedcare.enquiries@salvationarmy.org.au