Speak Out June 2018

Aged care

Aged care update

National Advisor update It has been a busy start to the role, which in the first month has included activities such as: • Reviewing and contributing to papers and submissions, o o Draft Aged Care Standards Guidance Material,

Welcome to Kym Torresi – National Aged Care Advisor

Kym comes to the role with almost 30 years of experience working with older people across acute, subacute, community and residential aged care settings, including in the last few years working as a Manager of a multidisciplinary community allied health team navigating the sector reforms of My Aged Care, transition to Commonwealth Home Support Program funding (and under 65 years clients transitioning to NDIS), and providing services under Home Care Packages to clients living in the community. Kym has been a member of the SPA Aged Care Working Party and previously represented SPA at some events such as the National Aged Care Alliance meetings. Kym is responsible for providing advice to members, supporting the work of the Association’s Aged Care working Party including developing resources for members, as well as informing and contributing to SPA’s strategic positioning and advocacy for the profession in the face of the current aged care sector reforms. Kym will be working at National Office two days a week (generally Monday and Wednesday), and can be contacted by email at agedcare@speechpathologyaustralia.org.au, the on Facebook Aged Care member community, or via phone at 1300 368 835.

Medical Treatment Planning and Decisions Act 2016, Position paper on Assistive Technology for Older Australians (National Aged Care Alliance);

• Advocacy and training presentations, o o

National Palliative Care workforce review, My Aged Care Learning Environment (MACLE online training platform) development workshop, Training presentation to new RAS assessors;

• Responding to members queries and requests; • Reviewing and planning for the Aged Care Working Party’s strategic objectives in 2018. We have lots planned for the coming year, including plans to create an Aged Care page on the SPA website, and we welcome your thoughts and ideas on what you would like to see included as resources on this page. One of the tasks that has been worked on to date has been collecting profiles of speech pathologists currently working in the area of Aged Care. The first of these profiles can be seen on the next page. I look forward to working with you all to continue to progress our profession’s profile and practice in this area to enhance the lives of older people!

Kym Toressi National Aged Care Advisor

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June 2018 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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