practical living
There are lots of different groups,
especially in the UK, who are approaching
Compassionate Communities through
more of an institution like a hospice. And in
Australia, as well, there are some really great
initiatives that are happening from more of
that top-down approach. What we were
interested in with this project was activating
citizens, so what happens from a grassroots
level. So, yes, it’s about connecting with local
councils, different aged care providers, and
more structural institutions in end-of-life.
But the real drive of this project is
passionate citizens, people that have
an experience with end of life and that
inspires them to want to change the way
it’s happening in their community. Or
people who’ve realised there’s a gap and
want to make a difference, so then they
started having those conversations with the
different institutions or at a local council
level. So it’s asking for broad social change,
so there’s no one way to go about it and no
best place to start. But we have, through this
project, focused on starting with activating
just community members.
Going back to some literature I’ve read,
and you mentioned the UK, some of
the examples have been going to local
schools and getting children to come
into facilities and spend time with elder
people, and also training volunteers in
actual care. Are there any specific ideas
that have been implemented? It’s also important to recognise that
Compassionate Communities is about
amplifying what already exists. So an
initiative like a dementia-friendly town is
fantastic and so relevant to the work, so it’s
about really establishing partnerships with
those existing initiatives and groups.
When people signed up to this project, we
asked them to show that they did have wider
community support, that there was already
some investment in this work. We asked
that they start with a community event or a
forum just to cast the net wide and see what
ideas or initiatives came up.
The purpose of exploring it that way was
because if the community is identifying
the strengths and also the gaps, then the
community is coming up with the solutions
to fill those gaps.
That’s when initiatives like you’ve just
talked about – school children spending
time with elder people in facilities, and
bereavement support in universities – start
to arise. It will be interesting in the next 12
months to see what comes of it. What are the ideal outcomes from the
GroundSwell Project five years from now?
The project has a pretty broad vision, which
is to increase Australia’s death literacy.
Compassionate Communities is a core part
of our work. We hope this project, which
we’re about halfway through, can be the
beginning of something bigger.
With the eight communities, I hope they’ll
all still be active in five years’ time, but it’s not
within my control in that sense. But certainly
after the two years of the project time
length, I hope that we will have co-designed
a resource with these eight communities
of what they found really useful, and what
they really struggled with, and that we can
produce something that will be of benefit to
the wider movement. ■
LIM
IT
BO ED P
OK LA
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Dementia
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26 agedcareinsite.com.au