When Home and Community Care services transferred from the East Gippsland Shire to what was then Lakes Entrance Community Health Centre in 1996, Carol Keighran, Carol Blanford and Marjorie Answer came with them.
Thirty years later, all three are still part of the team.
As GLCH celebrates 30 years of delivering home care services across East Gippsland, the milestone provides an opportunity to reflect on just how much has changed, and what has stayed the same.
Back in 1996, the transfer of Home and Community Care and Maternal and Child Health services marked one of the biggest periods of growth in the organisation’s history. More than 100 staff joined GLCH, significantly expanding its reach across the region.
In its first year, approximately 100 home care workers delivered more than 38,000 hours of domestic assistance to more than 700 East Gippsland residents.
Today, GLCH’s Home & Community Support Services team supports 2,264 clients and delivers more than 97,000 hours of care each year through programs including Support at Home, the Commonwealth Home Support Programme, NDIS, Veterans’ Home Care, post-acute care and fee-for-service supports.
For Carol, Carol and Marj, some of the biggest changes have been the systems and technology used to coordinate care.
When they first started, rosters were handwritten on large A3 sheets using pens, rulers and correction fluid. Community support workers would call into the office to collect roster updates, while visit records were completed using carbon-copy forms and later used for payroll processing.
Before mobile phones, contacting a care worker often meant ringing a client’s home phone and asking to speak with the worker directly.
“Transferring from the East Gippsland Shire was the easy part,” Marj said. “It’s all the new technology that’s challenged me over the years. But caring for our clients is what has kept me here.”
Today, digital systems provide staff with real-time access to client information and schedules, making it easier than ever to coordinate support across East Gippsland.
The role itself has also evolved significantly.
“When we first started, most of our work centred around domestic assistance, with only a small number of personal care clients,” Carol Blanford said.
“Today, we support people through a much broader range of services, but that’s part of what has made the role so rewarding. Every client has their own story and every day is different.
“When I think about the last 30 years, the word that comes to mind is care. Supporting people to remain independent in their own homes has been a privilege, and the experience has made me a better person.”
Executive Manager Home & Community Support Services Penny Cassidy said while the way services are delivered has changed dramatically over the years, the purpose remains the same.
“Over the past 30 years we’ve seen enormous changes in the way community care is delivered, but what hasn’t changed is the importance of helping people live independently and with dignity in the place they call home,” Penny said.
“This milestone belongs to the hundreds of community support workers, coordinators, volunteers and care professionals who have dedicated their careers to helping others. Their compassion, commitment and willingness to go the extra mile have made a real difference to the lives of thousands of local people.”
From paper rosters and carbon-copy timesheets to mobile apps and real-time client information, the service has evolved significantly over three decades.
But at its heart, it remains what it has always been: people helping people.
Congratulations to our Home & Community Support Services team on 30 years of helping East Gippsland residents live well at home.
Carol K, Marjorie and Carol B.