practical living
community. So even though on paper
the services are shown to be available,
they’re not accessible. Likewise the current
list of services is often out of date.
You need to have something people
can access, and the information on there
needs to be accurate. So we’re trying to
change that.
We’re using this new method called the
Social Network Analysis. We try to connect
the services to see where the gaps are.
We’re trying to find the pressure points as
well. If you think about a traffic jam, you
This is really quite
a new and unique way
to approach a problem.
want to see where the traffic jam is. You
want to better understand what caused
the traffic jam, why people can’t access
certain services. Is it because the funding is
not available or because people cannot be
referred to services? Instead of just seeing
things in the flat sort of way, we want to
ensure that through this project, people
can understand how they can access the
services when they need them.
picture: how people can see what services
are available around them locally that
they can access.
This study is going to run over three
years. Is this standard? This will be run in Bendigo. Will you be
able to extrapolate any findings and
apply them to a more generalised or
urban setting?
It is and it isn’t. What you really want to
do is work with the whole community,
and what is unique about this study is that
we’re trying to engage with a range of key
stakeholders.
Obviously, people living with
dementia and their carers are central.
But we also want to engage with the
service providers, with the people
delivering community services. The
people who deliver support services
to those living with dementia are often
not recognised. Transport, for example,
is important in the rural and regional
context, but people sometimes don’t
put two and two together.
So we’re trying to be comprehensive in
this project and also provide the bigger What we’re hoping to achieve with this
project is to look at a problem in an
innovative way and to find a solution by
using a comprehensive engagement of
a whole community – whether that’s
something that would be useful for people
living with dementia.
The city of Bendigo is a good place to
trial whether this solution will work or not.
Then we are hoping to extrapolate the
findings and methods on how we engage
with the key stakeholders on all levels to
apply this to other settings.
It’s not just metro areas, but other rural
and regional areas around Australia and
even internationally as well. This is really
quite a new and unique way to approach
a problem. ■
You’d be wise to
be up to date.
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