Community Living Program
The Spastic Centre Community Living Program supports adults with disabilities to live as independently as possible within the community.
Inclusion within the community is promoted and the service aims to provide a responsive, flexible and individual service to ensure individual needs are met.
The purpose of the accommodation service is to offer adults with disabilities, the opportunity to live as independently as possible within the community. We all need support throughout our lives, be it from family or friends. Community Living Program employees offer a range of support depending on the needs of individual client.
The highest level of support includes employees being available whenever the clients are at home. This provides in-home care and regular assistance with meals, bathing, dressing, domestic duties and supporting clients in the local community.
The lowest level of support is a drop-in home visit on a regular basis. This role is to provide support, personal care and/or domestic support. They may also require assistance to develop a range of community networks.
Additional support is offered from the Adult Resource Program through individual and group assessments for community living.
During the day, clients attend either a Business Service or a Community Access Service. These services operate Monday to Friday 8am to 4pm.
A House Manager is employed to manage the day-to-day running of the service with support from Community House Workers. Clients are given the opportunity and encouragement to be involved in this process.
Who's Who in the team
The Community living Program currently manages 30 community houses, supporting 140 adults across metropolitan Sydney and Newcastle. We provide support to clients who live alone, married couples and up to six clients sharing a house.
The team consists of Community Living Managers, House Managers and Community House Workers. This team is also supported by the Adult Resource Program who works collaboratively with the community living team. This support includes physiotherapists, speech pathologists and occupational therapists.
The Community Living Program employees over two hundred people. As the service operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, employees are required to work different shifts which include sleepover and awake night-shifts. Depending on the site, employees would commence at 6am and finish at 9am. Then start at 4pm and finish at 10pm Monday to Friday. Over the weekend the sites are staffed all day. Some clients are supported at home during the day.
What’s great about working in Community Living
The Spastic Centre provides great training and the opportunity to complete Certificate III and IV in Disability Work. The organisation also offers Certificate IV in Business (Frontline Management).
Although it is shift work, we support employees that need to attend family functions or further studies. Many employees enjoy being able to work morning, afternoons, overnight and weekends as they are able to have most of day to be at home.
The Community Living Program supports employees on shift, with a 24 hour on-call system, should any employee require assistance or just need to get some advice. Managers have regular supervision sessions with employees which provides employees with the appropriate supports. There is also an annual appraisal system which assists with the further development of employees.