From City of Salisbury to TACSI - Jenna's First Week

Posted by Jenna Harrison on 29 August 2011 | 3 Comments
Tags: Radical Redesign, Ageing

Read about my first week working as part of the Radical Redesign Team.

Your first week working somewhere new is always interesting. You are spending time working out new routines, getting to know your freshly adopted work family, sussing out different ways of working and generally settling in and getting comfortable with all the changes happening in your life. It’s probably relevant to mention that I’m getting married in 5 weeks....eeeeek! This is definitely amplifying the impact of change.

I’ve worked for the City of Salisbury at the Jack Young Centre - a community centre specifically for people aged 50 and over for the last 6 1/2 years. My days were filled working with a wide variety of community members and volunteers to develop and implement social programs, services that support people, share information and provide learning opportunities. The Jack Young Centre (JYC) is also home to a cafe that operates 6 days a week and is staffed by a team of volunteers - the cafe is a big part of what happens at the centre and serves around 35,000 meals a year. JYC is the kind of place that is often referred to as a ‘home away from home’, people feel comfortable. Members are volunteers and volunteers are members. The people (and usually food!) are central to everything that happens.
 
At the Jack Young Centre I spent alot of time talking with people about their lives. What was happening, the things that mattered to them, the things that were good and sometimes not so good. I was involved with peoples lives and have made many friends. Together with my colleagues we used this information about peoples lives to establish new programs and services or grow existing ones. In most cases the design and delivery of these programs or services is led by seniors with the staff playing a supporting role.
 
Large numbers of seniors walk through the doors and hang out at the Jack Young Centre every week - many of those people are connected with caring - either being cared for, caring for someone or knowing someone experiencing this kind of relationship. In this context the JYC staff often hear of negative experiences people have. We have conversations and hear ideas about how aspects of services work well for people, we hear ideas to improve and change how things are and how to assist people to live more positive lives. Working at JYC is great as we often get the opportunity to implement aspects or portions of these ideas but like most providers of social services - working within a council run community centre for seniors has it limitations and lacks the potential to make an impact on a large sustainable scale. 
 
That is why working with TACSI and the Radical Redesign Team is just so exciting. It is exciting to have the opportunity to be part of a team with such vast experience and speciality, to work using the radical redesign approach and work with carers and those being cared for from the very beginning. It’s exciting to know that people are central to the radical redesign approach and that the process is about ensuring what we come up with can be implemented on larger scale and will be supported by a strategic framework to make it sustainable. For an Adelaide girl it’s such a great opportunity to learn. New ways of working, new ways of thinking, new ways to influence positive changes. So much to learn.

 

Jenna Harrison is the newest member of the Radical Redesign Team. She is seconded from the City of Salisbury to work on the latest project on caring.