Welcome to our winter update. The start of the new financial year sees a refocusing of the work the Summer Foundation is doing to keep young people out of aged care.
We will be building on the strong foundations we have established in creating more specialist disability accommodation (SDA) options to help young people avoid aged care and improving the transition from hospital to home.
This means we will be expanding The Housing Hub and Tenant Matching Service with a big focus on matching NDIS participants with appropriate housing as early as possible. A critical part of this is ensuring that NDIS participants in hospital and aged care understand the housing options available and have the right supports in their NDIS plans to leave hospital.
To this end we will be ramping up our hospital discharge work to encourage engagement from senior health executives; extending the rollout of the Collaborative Discharge Approach; and continuing the UpSkill program to build the capacity of support coordinators so they are better equipped to help young people avoid or leave aged care.
Our inaugural Get Building SDA National Conference, presented with Youngcare in March, was a great success with more than 400 attendees. Of particular note was the announcement from the Hon. Paul Fletcher (then Minister for Families and Social Services) on concrete targets the government has set to halve the number of young people in aged care. We look forward to working with the government to achieve the goals.
The Aged Care Royal Commission continues and the Summer Foundation has been delighted to support 100 people to tell their stories through submissions.
Luke Bo’sher
CEO