Address: 100 Queen Street, Bendigo VIC 3550

Phone: (03)54412666 email: admin@amicus.org.au web: www.amicus.org

Hello Everyone Has been very nice to enjoy some lovely spring weather over the past few days! It feels like I have said ‘it’s been a busy month’ in every edition of the newsletter this year. So perhaps I will start of this newsletter with …. it’s been a busy year! There is so much to learn about the NDIS and this newsletter is one way we communicate. In this edition I wanted to talk about the NDIS establishment fee, which is something new for participants and organisations. The establishment fee is a one off and is a standard fee in the NDIS pricing schedule. The NDIS allows for $250 for existing participants and $500 for new participants to a service, so make sure that this is discussed with you planner and they have made adequate allowance in your plan. If you are interested in moving to a new home there are also supports within the NDIS to assist you to achieve this goal as well. Specialist Disability Accommodation support coordination is a type of specialist support coordination required to facilitate the assessment of participants for SDA and assist participants with high support needs or complex needs to find a suitable SDA following assessment. An Exploring Housing Options Package provides up to 70 hours (additional to any Support Coordination hours in place) and up to 50 hours or 5 individual assessments to assess suitability & needs.

More staffing news this month …. Janet Gregory has been successful in her application for the position of Service Co-ordinator and Natalie Hayes for the position of Children’s Services Coordinator. These roles have all now commenced and I am sure that you will join me in congratulating them on their new appointments. Dean will also be spending more time in office based team leader duties to support Janet. We have also had some more recruitment of new casual Community Support Workers … yes even since the last newsletter, this is due to continued demand for Amicus’ services from both existing and new participants. I have also spent some time with MASARG in Castlemaine working on the next stages of their A Home of My Own project. This project will focus on supporting people with an intellectual or developmental disability to move into their own home whether that be private rental or home ownership, by themselves or with others. I look forward to working with them to bring the project to fruition. Cecil St is also moving ahead with machinery on site and the road due to be ‘roughed in’. We have some more very exciting news about the units that we plan to construct that I will be in a position to share in the next newsletter … so stay tuned! With school holiday programs and leave for some of our participants in adult services coming up, stay safe and enjoy the sunshine!

Cheers! Ann-Maree

From the EO

Ann-Maree Davis

Inside this issue

From the EO ................................. 1 Key Dates ..................................... 1

Have a Say News ....................... 2 HACC News ............................... 3 Support Co-ordination ............... 3 Access and Support ................... 4 Flyer .......................................... 5 Flyer .......................................... 6 Flyer .......................................... 7 Have a Say - Fundraiser Lunch ... 8

Has news for this month : Fund raising lunch next Tuesday 26 September All welcome, see flyer on back page for details. Xmas Raffle tickets have started to be sold, they can be

purchased for $2.00 each from Amicus Reception or Have a Say Group, it will be drawn on 20th December at the Xmas lunch.

Sausage sizzle is being held at Epsom Bunnings on Sun the 15th Oct, come along and grab a snag!!!

A couple of people from the group will be attending the Australian Self Advocacy Forum in Melbourne in October, so busy times ahead for the group.

Have a Say Group

SAVE THE DATE!

For this years

AMICUS CHRISTMAS EVENT

Wednesday 20th December

BENDIGO ROWING CLUB

LAKE WEEROONA

HACC News

HACC Program for Younger People and Commonwealth Home Support Program

September has been a very busy month for the HACC PYP (under 65) and CHSP (over 65). There have been

lots of outings and the usual craft and games. Residents from Homebush enjoyed a drive to Maldon and a

BBQ lunch. The countryside is so colourful with both canola and wattle in flower.

We are in the process of reviewing and updating Care Plans for the CHSP participants and it was great for me

(Elaine) to get over to Princes Park Lodge in Maryborough and catch up with the residents. Glenda took a

small group to Morning Melodies at the Highland Society and I was able to tag along and chat to Charlie and

Craig about their plans. The program is every third Monday and it’s free!

Elaine Crowle HACC Team Leader

Glenda Duffy

Support Worker

Elaine does some planning with Craig and

Charlie at Morning Melodies at the

Maryborough Highland Society.

Tony, John Y, Gay, Kevin and

John G with a background of

wattle at Taradale. Homebush residents had

a yummy lunch at the

Schweppes Centre to

help Helena celebrate

her birthday

Support Coordination Team

What an exciting month for Support Coordination… Lots of goals being achieve through people finding the right service and the staff to help them live their good life The following have achieved their dreams to Laura and Kath have now move into homes of their own, one has moved to Echuca and the other is now liv-ing in Ballarat. Robert loves to draw and Phillip is amazing with wood, these are remarkable artists, they now have the op-portunity to show others how good they are by exhibiting their work at exhibitions in the future. Kayne get to enjoy his love of fine food and wine by spending every second Saturday at the local restaurants of his choice Ashley now gets to go on family bush walk because of specialist equipment that was source in NSW for him Each participant is involved in choosing how we interpret their NDIS goal and they are achieving amazing things

Keep living the good life Susan, Christine, Jessica and Megan

Susan Perkins Support

Co-ordination

Christine Daly Support Co-ordination

Jessica Parker Support Co-ordination

Support Coordination

Megan Phillips Specialist Support Co-ordination

Access and Support

Greetings all,

I was fortunate to have a month off during July and August and returned to Bendigo to find lots of weeds in the vegie patch and much work to be done all round. So yes, spring has sprung and the warm weather is most welcome.

When I returned to work (as well as my one to one work) I was lucky enough to attend two information sessions/workshops and a Regional Diversity Forum. All very relevant to my role in the community and here at Amicus.

1. The Creating Culturally Inclusive Workplaces and Challenging Unconscious Bias work shop offered some great inspirational reminders about why diversity and inclusion really matters. We explored ‘unconscious bias’ and how this can be a key barrier to progressing with diversity in the work place. I was reminded how easy it can be to have unconscious bias leading to inadvert-ently excluding others in workplaces and how this can impact greatly on the work place culture.

2. The Regional Diversity Forum considered a number of issues related to diversity, including how organisations can partner with Aboriginal organisations and how we support access to ser-vices, ensuring cultural appropriateness and safety.

3. The Connecting With Older LGBTI People and Their Supporters information session, also pro-vided great reminders about how easy it is to overlook the importance of demonstrating inclu-sive practice and ensuring the marginalised groups feel safe and welcome in organisations. You will note if you are in the Amicus building we have added some great pictures of gay and lesbian people, along with statements and images of people with a disability who identify as GLBTI. This helps to send a message to participants, staff and visitors that our work place is safe and cultur-ally appropriate for people of all sexual preferences. I have already had some very positive feedback from one participant who felt validated and happy to see such images, stating that marriage equality is the next best step.

Attending these workshops provided some opportunity to reflect on why I work at Amicus. On what Amicus does well in ensuring diversity, cultural safety and inclusion, as well as a reminders for me of some areas that might need to be enhanced. One more step towards inclusion is that we have recently employed some Karen support workers which will enable the organisation to better respond to the Ka-ren people and offer more culturally appropriate support to them. This is a wonderful step forward in supporting our great emphasis on the ‘One Person at a Time” approach to working with participants and how this will support diversity and inclusion.

Not only does such a commitment ensure we provide support to people from a wide range of back-grounds, with varying degrees of capacity, working in a respectful way, along with welcoming people of all cultural backgrounds and sexual preferences, - but it helps attract and retain talented staff. Partici-pants and workers alike benefit from such a culture.

A quote I picked up at the Challenging Unconscious Bias workshop:

“One of the things I’ve learnt is that if you don’t intentionally include, the system unintentionally ex-cludes.” – Elizabeth Broderick, former Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commissioner”

Di Parker Access and Support Worker