industry & policy
Consider childcare as an asset
A
Looking for a
little synergy
between your
clients – and in
your portfolio?
Adding youth
services can
do the job.
Alexandra Davis
interviewed by
Dallas Bastian
ged-care providers interested in adding to
their portfolio of businesses should consider
investing in childcare, opening the door for
residents and children to interact.
Alexandra Davis, chief executive of Holy Family
Services, provided this insight while speaking about
diversifying aged-care businesses at the LASA
National Congress 2016.
Holy Family Services’ offerings include a residential
aged-care facility, a 39-place childcare service,
retirement living and a registered training organisation
offering accredited and endorsed courses to the
aged-care industry.
Davis said adding childcare to the business, besides
acting as an additional income stream, also creates
opportunities for residents to socialise with young
children and gives staff an option for childcare that’s
close to where they work.
Aged Care Insite sits down with Davis to discuss the
challenges and opportunities that arise for aged-care
organisations when venturing into childcare and
education and training.
ACI: Holy Family Services provides aged care,
retirement living, childcare, and education and
training. You encourage providers interested in
diversifying their business to consider childcare.
Why is this a good idea?
AD: Childcare provides a number of benefits for
aged-care providers. Firstly, it’s an additional income
10 agedcareinsite.com.au
stream, and therefore, as we know, the cuts and the
changes to the [Aged Care Funding Instrument] ACFI
at this stage are putting pressure on much of the
industry and aged care. Childcare is synergistic with
aged care, with the accreditation processes that they
have to undergo. Therefore you can easily add it to
your portfolio of businesses. The children can then be
involved with the residents. They can come into the
aged care facility and spend time with the residents.
We have specific programs that we run for both the
residents and the children.
The children have [part of] their ongoing education
in the way that they spend time with the residents.
It forms part of the children’s program, I guess.
It’s quite a good way to augment your services
if you are looking for something that adds value.
It benefits our staff, too, because they have
somewhere to put their children if they are working
in our facility. It’s often difficult to get childcare
that’s close to your work.
What challenges arise from connecting childcare
to aged care, and in particular from connecting the
people in those facilities?
The biggest challenge would be that they are working
under different acc reditation systems and while they
are synergistic, each has to comply with government
legislation in a slightly different way. That is just
something we have to work through, I guess. It is a
challenge, but it’s not insurmountable.