Yesterday ‘New ACSA’ announced it was ‘open for business’. This is important for us as a community and a society. Why?
‘New ACSA’ is the informal term being used for the new era of the not-for-profit organisation Aged & Community Services Australia (ACSA). It’s the ‘peak body’ representing most of the churches and charities that deliver home, community and residential aged care throughout Australia, with approximately 1,100 members. They provide real care to over 700,000 Australians, many of whom are vulnerable to extremely vulnerable.
Strengthened roles, stronger voice
New ACSA has many roles to fulfil. The most important in my mind is to be a voice for two groups: these vulnerable seniors and the 300,000+ staff of ACSA members who provide the care to these people every day.
The context is that federal government is forcing rapid change on the aged care system ahead of potential blowouts in the cost of care as large numbers of baby boomers move towards old age. There are also new demands and expectations from consumers.
The bureaucrats and policymakers are isolated. They look at data; they don’t get to look into the eyes of real people in distress or pain. Nor do they experience what it is to deliver care, for instance the distances to be travelled to bring services to older people in rural and remote locations.
ACSA provides this real data from the field and it also delivers the emotional data, the context, to enable bureaucrats to understand the impact of their potential decisions.
The people who care
ACSA also has a responsibility to the staff who provide aged care, which they do 24/7 across Australia.
Because these staff work with our most vulnerable, they are open to criticism from many quarters, particularly the families of aged care residents and clients. But also the media. It is a monthly event that a major media organisation sensationalises an individual event and infers that such troubles are endemic across all aged care.
This isn’t right. It not only undermines the community’s confidence in aged care and generates misplaced or at least vastly disproportionate fear; it also reflects negatively on all aged care workers, most of whom in fact work incredibly hard to do the best possible job.
ACSA, with its vital and diverse church and charity membership, is able to present a legitimate counterbalanced perspective, based on real data, collaborative research and decades of committed, ongoing experience from the field – if its voice can be heard.
Being heard
Cutting through the noise of competing interests and complex change and being heard in this increasingly aggressive, fast paced media world, ‘old’ ACSA no doubt recognises that it needs to be equally aggressive as a voice. New ACSA will hopefully be part of that approach.
Frank & Earnest is published by DoComeMonday Media which is a financial sponsor of New ACSA. We believe it is important to have strong and ethical representatives for our vulnerable ageing Australians and the people who care for them every day.
We recognise that a ‘New ACSA’ is important. We ask you to do so as well.
PHOTO: Rural and remote care package delivery – courtesy Villa Maria Catholic Homes, Victoria
