Support workers can develop the skills to work with complexity in community aged care: An Australian study of training provided across aged care community services

Abstract

Enhancing support workers' (SW) role is timely given increasing demands on human and financial health care resources. This article presents outcomes of a program, delivered to 140 participants from five community aged care providers in Australia, designed to enhance knowledge, skills, and confidence of community aged care SWs, building their practical skills in understanding, recognizing, and responding to complexity. Evaluation training modules on communication, complexity, behavior change, and chronic condition self-management support involved pre/post surveys with SWs and their supervisors. SWs reported greater awareness, skills, and confidence in working with complexity, reinforcing the value of their existing practices and skills. Coordinators reported greater appreciation of SWs' skills, and greater awareness of gaps in SWs' support and supervision needs. Educators, policy makers, and services should account for these contributions, given growing fiscal restraint and focus on reablement and consumer-directed care.

Reablement through time and space: A scoping review of how the concept of ‘reablement’ for older people has been defined and operationalised

“…While generally pointing out that restorative home care/reablement services for older adults have been "shown to be effective in reducing functional dependency and increasing functional mobility, confidence in everyday activities, and quality of life" (Lewin et al, 2016), the literature from this region has often focused on support workers and non-health professionals; e.g., to receive better training and improve collaboration (Lewin et al, 2016), to promote health-behaviour change (Lawn et al, 2017a), and to develop the skills to work with complexity in community aged care (Lawn et al, 2017b). A trend towards developing better collaboration was also evident in a paper about the feasibility of LifeFul, a relationship and reablement-focused "culture change program" in residential aged care (Low et al, 2018).…”

The service triangle and power: the role of frontline home support workers and consumer‐directed care—an Australian context

“…() and Lawn et al . () examined future enhancement and skill development of the home support worker role. There appears to be little research at either an international or Australian level, which examines home support workers' perceptions of change in power in their own role during a period change to a consumer‐directed model.…”

Support workers as agents for health behavior change: An Australian study of the perceptions of clients with complex needs, support workers, and care coordinators

“…Statistics on hospital admissions, client outcomes, and cost presented to improve support workers' understand of reasons why hospital avoidance is important for the health sector and for client outcomes. Identifying risk was supported by a literature review to inform development of an evidence-based practice tool (the AWACCS- Figure 2) that support workers could use routinely to report small gradual changes in activities of daily living, weight and/or nutrition, awareness, condition, cognition, and socialization for clients who they visited at home (Kumar & Stanhope, 2014 …”

“…It reports on the outcomes of qualitative data from in-depth interviews with clients and focus groups with support workers and care coordinators that sought their perceptions of the impact of complexity competent support workforce training developed for this purpose on the care provided by support workers to clients. It complements quantitative evaluation of that training, using a series of pre-and postsurveys, reported elsewhere (Lawn, Westwood, Jordans, & Keller, 2016). The research was guided by two key objectives:…”