Abstracts & Presentation Summaries - Department of Health

Recreational activities: Music plays a key role in our centres. Clients fully
participate in activities such as dancing and singing. Music Therapy is one of
the main activities provided to individuals with memory loss and dementia.
A Music Therapist attends the centres in a monthly basis.
Innovative activities: grape crushing and chucks therapy.
Health Promotion
Health promotion in PAGs is becoming vital as the clients who are attending the
programs present higher physical and mental needs.
Brimbank Sub Regional PAGs services has invited, in the past, health professional
speakers to talk to our clients. However, we want to give this area a greater
emphasis. Our aim, this year, is to provide awareness and information sessions to all
our staff as well as our clients including those from culturally and linguistically
diverse (CALD) communities.
Challenges
For some ethnic aged groups the concept ‘day care centre’ is hard to grasp. It either
does not exist in their culture or applies to other specific services such as children’s
facilities. Anecdotal and scientific data has shown that some ethnic aged groups have
chosen to refer to the day centre as ‘the club’ (Sanchez, 2000).
To provide activities for such a diverse group is a challenging task. In order to
facilitate the program delivery, some groups are divided in subgroups and to cater
for their cultural preferences. Our activity approach is currently under review,
and we are looking for ways to maximize our client’s satisfaction as well as the
utilisation of our human resources.
Key Elements
The following are some of the vital elements for the provision of a successful
multicultural program.
Each individual is treated with respect. Various aspects of the client’s
background are considered, such as language, cultural factors, social and
family networks, recentness of arrival, amongst others.
Staff members’ attitudes play a key role in the planning, development and
implementation of a successful program.
Awareness about the issues affecting the ethnic aged has been fundamental in
assisting us, the service providers, in gaining a better understanding of those
issues and maintaining cultural identity in community settings.
Some of the strategies that have assisted us to do so are:
o an open mind,
o learning about other cultures
o researching on the client’s preferences, likes and dislikes
o and networking.
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