3 October 2023
SCCQ is proud to partner with a range of industry experts on an exciting research project towards ensuring aged care residents can access their basic right to be heard and understood.
With older people experiencing complex sensory, speech, language, and cognitive changes that impact their ability to communicate and participate in conversations about their care, there’s a need to better support effective conversations within aged care.
There is also an opportunity to improve aged care workers’ skills and resources to provide support to older people. This research project led by the University of Queensland and Dr Sarah Wallace from the National Health & Medical Research Council, aims to consistently ensure that the older person’s voice is heard through a number of ways. These may include a tool for profiling the older person’s communication needs, guidelines to support ‘communication -friendly’ care planning, feedback and complaints resolution, and resources to upskill all of us.
SCCQ’s Chief of Governance, Risk and Research, Sandra Glaister, is one of the Research Steering Committee members for the project, joined by SCCQ’s Jasmine Siggs based in the Western Downs region who will be participating in the Lived Experience Advisory Group.
Our collaboration with UQ and other industry partners on this important project will span over the next five years, focusing on supporting conversations about care in community and residential aged care settings.
Across three stages of research, the research team will co-design, implement, and evaluate Better Conversations, an interdisciplinary, multi-component intervention for nurses and personal care workers in home and residential care across both metropolitan and rural areas.
Other project partners include the Australian Government Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, Wesley Mission Queensland, the Older Person’s Advocacy Network, Dementia Australia, the Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland, Speech Pathology Australia, Audiology Australia, and Southern Queensland Rural Health.
The research team with partners and stakeholders.
