To our team, on behalf of the Board, I thank every one of you for your contribution to Elder Rights Advocacy this year. Your professionalism, care, courage, kindness and willingness to walk beside older Victorians have enabled their voices to be heard and their human rights upheld during very difficult and challenging times.

To our OPAN partners, thank you for the challenges, opportunities for learning and influencing, and for our shared successes as a Network. To my Board colleagues, our CEO and the Leadership Team, thank you for your diligence and tireless efforts.

Elder Rights Advocacy began 2019/2020 with a clear agenda for the year ahead, or so we thought. To complete our first three-year contract with the Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN) and re-tender for the continuation of our contract; to respond to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety; to implement our Diversity project; to review our strategic plan; to achieve external accreditation and the consolidation of our services across regional and metropolitan Victoria. Little did we know what lay ahead.

The first significant event was the release of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety’s Interim Report, Aged Care in Australia: A Shocking Tale of Neglect, in October 2019. By early 2020, we had experienced the disasters of fire and flood, and in March, the COVID-19 pandemic changed every aspect of our existence.

While the pandemic has impacted everyone, older Australians have suffered the most, especially those in residential aged care facilities and those living alone. The impact of COVID-19 on residential care has been devastating, resulting in neglect, abuse and the loss of 655 lives. These deaths were a direct result of the inadequacies of the current aged care system, the very system that was intended to protect, support and nurture older Australians.

For over 20 years, the Australian government and the broader community have ignored the views of older Australians on how they wish to be supported as they age. Instead, we have continued to institutionalise our elders while deinstitutionalising services for other groups in society. In fact, since 1997, the institutionalisation of older Australians has increased: we currently lead the world in the proportion of older people in residential care.

Why? Our society does not value older people. We hide our bias in order to maintain a view of the world by which our elders are considered useless and dispensable. This societal attitude has a name: “ageism”. Ageism results in unfair attitudes towards older people, their experiences, and their capabilities.

Elder Rights Advocacy has been well aware for 30 years that the aged care system has suppressed the voices of older Australians. Our organisation exists to support older people’s right to quality care, to ensure that they have the opportunity to access and exercise greater choice and control of the services they utilise. Yet injustices persist and Australia’s aged care system is widely recognised as broken. So it is not enough to reform the system. We must demand the “transformative change” of our social services in aged and community care. They must be based on enshrining the human rights of older people.

For this transformation to occur, as Albert Einstein put it, our thinking must change. “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. We must all commit to challenging the old ways of thinking and create an environment of respect, kindness and compassion which enables the voices of older Australians to be heard, embraced and acted upon.

Mary Anne Hunt
President
On behalf of the Board

I would like to begin by thanking the staff at Elder Rights Advocacy for their commitment and support as I transition from Acting CEO to take up the role of CEO, commencing in July 2020. And to the Board of Management for their trust in me to lead the organisation into the future. A special thank you to Mary Anne Hunt, President, for her support while I move into the role.

A month after taking on the position of Acting CEO, I found myself leading the development of a pandemic plan for the organisation, which included a rapid shift to all staff working from home. For everyone, it has been a very challenging time. However, working from home has not stopped us from doing what we do best.

Through the Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN), our National Aged Care Advocacy Program (NACAP) has been extended for another two years commencing on 1 July 2020 and – as you will see within this report – we play an important role in advocating for the rights of older Victorians. This has become especially evident through COVID-19.

Our Aged Care Navigator trial program will be extended for another 12 months commencing in July 2020 and our regional Community Visitors Scheme (CVS) is strengthening; however, we see a huge need for further growth due to the ongoing issue of isolation and loneliness for older people – certainly becoming more evident through the pandemic. A huge thank you to all our wonderful CVS volunteers who continue to pivot and shift within the COVID restrictions, meaning a transition to electronic communication and “snail mail”. Oh the art of letter writing!

While our work has greatly increased in complexity over the year,
our knowledge and skills have also grown. Kept informed by older people, our highly competent staff deliver a quality service in all areas, and we are truly making a difference. We have a very solid foundation to draw upon when advocating for our clients, building community capacity to respond to issues, and contributing to government reforms. We are currently working through the final draft of our submission to the Royal Commission into Aged Care, eagerly awaiting its final recommendations and the government’s plan to improve the sector.

Thank you to all who have contributed to our work in the past year, including our funders, the Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN), our very active Board, our many CVS volunteers and our suppliers. We are strong.

A big thank you to our staff, who have been working within a rapidly changing sector and under the difficult circumstances of working from home and COVID-19 restrictions. We are making a difference.

Thank you to all the older people and/or their representatives who have made contact with us for information, advocacy support, education, or to seek friendship and social connectedness though our community visitors scheme. We are with you.

This has been a very challenging year amidst the long and drawn- out Royal Commission into aged care and the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we will continue to empower older Victorians to stay in control, stay connected, make informed decisions, plan ahead and – most importantly – uphold their rights. We now look forward to this next year – a time of possibility, opportunity and influence. Change is afoot, and we are determined to see it through!

Go well.
Philippa Campbell, CEO

It has been an exciting year for ERA with the launch and roll-out of the CVS program throughout regional Victoria. The CVS program is a federally-funded initiative, whereby volunteers are recruited and matched with socially-isolated older people who may be lonely and would benefit from having a friendly visitor. The program is a new pathway for ERA and enables us to provide additional support and connections for our older community.

As the CVS Coordinator for the program, my focus over the past year has been to develop strong connections with agencies to build the profile of the program and organisation, whilst also building a strong, vibrant and committed volunteer team who are there supporting our community every day.

The year 2020 has presented many challenges for all of us in Victoria. Bushfires, a pandemic and restrictions to daily life have certainly impacted how we do things, requiring us to be agile in service delivery and flexible in our approach to an ever-changing landscape.

COVID-19 has forced us to redevelop our program to ensure we continue to support individuals throughout these uncertain times. During the first wave of the pandemic, the CVS team redeveloped the program to a virtual model, known as The Connect & Share Project. Connect & Share allows volunteers to interact with individuals by phone, online, letters and video chats. Extensive work was done with aged care facilities and home care providers to ensure that our existing recipients were able to remain connected, as well as continuing to reach out to individuals who, without these changes, might not have been able to access the service.

COVID-19 has highlighted the significant impact social isolation has on individuals, and the benefit of social connection for an individual’s wellbeing. The silver lining to the troubling times we currently find ourselves in is our amazing volunteers. I am extremely honoured to be working with our rapidly growing team of 60+ volunteers, who are making over 200 connections with isolated older people each month.

Every day our volunteers are calling, video chatting, writing letters, and keeping connected with our most vulnerable community members. Often, our volunteers express their delight in connecting and sharing and learning from our elders. Without this commitment, many individuals would go for days without speaking or seeing a single person.

Our focus over the next 12 months is to expand and continue to grow the CVS program throughout regional Victoria.

I would like to acknowledge the work and commitment of our volunteers. It has been an absolute pleasure working with our team and I am excited as to where the next 12 months will take us.

Megan Collisson, Coordinator Community Visitor Scheme (CVS) Victoria