Monday, September 7, 2009

Supported Residential Services in Glen Eira- Proposal for Outings Program

Today I had the pleasure of visiting the residents and staff at one of the four Supported Residential Services (SRS) homes located in Glen Eira.

This was in response to a request for our council to fund an Outings Program -regular excursions for this group .

Presently 75 residents live full time in these facilities. They do have special needs and requirements . I was very interested to hear first hand how our council can better assist in delivering services and programs that will really enhance and encourage participation in the wider community .

I believe an outings program for these residents would go a significant way to achieving this and providing a lot of enjoyment for this disadvantaged and sometime socially isolated group within our community.

Presently we do not provide for this, unlike several of our neighboring councils who have conducted successful programs for many years.

I am hopeful and confident that Council will agree to fund a modest outings program for SRS's in the near future.

5 comments:

  1. Quite often at Chadstone Shopping Centre one sees small bus loads being off loaded near Borders. I had assumed they would be from within Glen Eira or Monash.

    Perhaps a suggestion could be that when Glen Eira Council is having one of its Park festival days, it organises the buses and brings them into a family style outing. Council already knows their dates so planning can start early. Also the Clayton RSL sometimes has a luncheon table for the differently abled.

    Sometimes it is the beauty of feeling pure fresh air on your face and a breeze in the hair. I know how stale I felt being confined to a room for a solid month of illness, so imagine that with their confining lives it can seem endless.....

    Cr Pilling, it is the little services like this that slip under the radar of the Council and while most of us assumed it was happening, we shouldn't have - because this Council is incapable of not blowing its own whistle for a job well done!

    Thankfully, you will now call on your colleagues to promote the funding for making the differently abled lives that little more cheerful by bringing them out of the closet!

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  2. Neil, let me get this straight! We do not have any social outings for this group of residents? if this is correct, then it proves what a sham the council plan actually is. Year after year we have the Action Plan of 'deliver social outings and exercise classes to at least 200 socially isolated individuals each year'. Looks good on paper doesn't it? But the reality is vastly different.

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  3. This is off the topic, but after reading the Leader I see that there are more residents up in arms about lack of consultation/warning about developments at E.E. Gunn Reserve. Sounds like another Lord Reserve fiasco - residents not told anything until after the bulldozers arrive, no consultation, no information, no nothing. Did councillors even know? If not, then what happened to the pact that was made following Lord Reserve events? Or is this simply another example where community and councillors are ignored and it's the same old story - we do what we want when we want and to hell with everybody else?

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  4. I certainly would support an outings program - I think this sort of community service is a vital part of what Councils SHOULD be doing.

    There is also good opportunities to generate "incursions" for residents. For instance, where I used to live the kids from the council run childcare centre used to regularly visit at a nearby aged care home - it was a great for both the kids and the oldies.

    Also people visiting people living in homes with dogs (therapy accredited by VicDog) is also fantastic. Why not encourage local dog owners to have their dogs tested and (hopefully) accredited, to join such a scheme?

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  5. I hope the people within the Town Hall feeling so smug with their contributions to society read your blog Councillor! I think Kim's idea of dogs being introduced into their world - is an excellent idea and perhaps Cr Magee could investigate as chair of the Animal Management Committee....he might need a couple of experts to help him out there...but its a start with your own attempts at genuine community engagement with issues that need to be addressed promptly....

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