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CEO
Almost three years in the making (research work by
Adrian Harrison and Matt Tesch began in early 2014
using Pat Carlin’s 2010 booklet as an essential guide),
BUSHIES
is the product of many thousands of hours
of almost entirely-voluntary commitment. More
than 8,000 images and documents in our archives
were appraised, sorted and sifted; more than 2,000 of
these were carefully digitised to preserve fragmenting
newspaper cuttings, scratchy recordings and fading
photographic emulsion for future generations.
More than 800 of these incredible pictures ultimately
found their way into the 448 pages of the book which,
for the first time, fully illuminates the inspiring vision
of our founders in the 1930s and the courageous
efforts of succeeding generations of BUSHkids staff
and management in transforming and evolving our
organisation to ensure it continues to meet very
different family and community needs to those which
were first confronted more than 80 years ago.
Building the capacity of rural, remote
and regional communities
During the 2015-16 year BUSHkids aimed to further
develop services in line with our service model, to
support all children in our regions to achieve their
potential. This is approached through a range of
strategies with the intent of reducing the number of
children requiring clinical intervention in the future
by implementing early interevention, prevention and
health promotion strategies. We aim to build local
communities’ capacity to support the developmental
needs of children. This is achieved by providing
education and training for parents and early
childhood workers.
We also provide targeted group programs in settings
where needs have been identified. These include
evidence-based and evidence-informed programs
which address particular skill development (such as
social skills, parenting, and communication) and the
introduction of BUSHkids playgroups. Initiatives
such as these complement our core multidisciplinary
clinical intervention services of Speech-Language
Pathology, Occupational Therapy and Psychology in
our service regions.
This extension of our focus is beginning to become
evident in our session statistics. We are reaching
more children and this is reflected in an increase
in targeted group programs being provided. In the
previous year we provided 1,347 group program
sessions; this increased by more than 53% to 2,067
sessions in 2015-16.
The change is particularly evident in the work we are
doing in our outreach towns. Previously only 35% of
sessions in outreach locations were group sessions. In
2015-16 the number of individual sessions provided
on outreach remained fairly steady (310, compared
with 335 the year before), however group sessions
provided on outreach increased by 83%, from 178
to 326, representing more than half of all outreach
sessions provided. Previously our community
education sessions were provided on an
ad hoc
basis.
Now that we are strategically focused in this area, we
are able to report 212 community education sessions
were held throughout Queensland in 2015-16.
Moving services from a purely clinical intervention
approach to utilising the full range of strategies –
including preventive and educational – has required
resources to be prioritised to support this change.
Chief Executive Officer
Carlton Meyn
This report comes to you at the end of my fifth and
final year as General Manager and first year as CEO
of BUSHkids, as our organisation’s 80th anniversary
celebrations come to a close. I am proud that from
strong foundations we are continuing to build and
evolve as an organisation to continue to meet the
needs of children and families living in regional,
rural and remote areas of Queensland. The work that
BUSHkids does remains in clear focus and there are
five core areas of achievement in the past year on
which we can reflect.
First, our 80th anniversary celebrations provided a
rare opportunity for us to rediscover the full extent of
our history and this reconnection has culminated in
the production of a comprehensive history book, the
result of huge amounts of effort , time and goodwill
by volunteers, BUSHkids Council, current and former
staff members and clients and the wider community.
Second, 2015/16 was a year when BUSHkids made
great strides in realising more strategic plans in our
approaches to building community capacity to meet
the needs of children in rural, regional and remote
areas of Queensland.
Third, our organisation is looking to the future with
the commencement of a research project to create a
telehealth framework for BUSHkids.
The fourth highlight has been reinvigorating and
consolidating community connections through our
growing numbers of volunteers and the members of
our Friends of BUSHkids committees.
Finally, as we continue to serve the community as
we have done for the last 80 years, we have taken the
opportunity to reflect on our progress against our
Strategic Plan and have undertaken work to continue
to improve our performance by more accurately
measuring productivity, reviewing our salary
structure and streamlining reporting.
History book
As the Chairman has noted, our magnificent
hardback book
BUSHIES : Stories from the first 80
years of BUSHkids – the Royal Queensland Bush
Children’s Health Scheme
will be officially launched
on our 81st birthday on 6 December 2016.
This book records some of the stories, memories and
recollections of the more than 42,000 children and
families our organisation has supported for more
than three generations, along with meaningful and
lively insights from many staff members past and
present. Rich in detail and lavishly illustrated with
many unique or rare images, this monumental work
captures a vital piece of Queensland’s social history
and celebrates the achievements of its people and
their Outback communities — and the living legacy
of our founder, Sir Leslie Orme Wilson.