celebrating potential, creating possibilities - The Centre for Cerebral ...

ceo’s report
The last year proved to be a challenging
and rewarding year both in terms of
external sector wide changes and also new
developments within The Centre.
The WA State Government announced a
$20m increase in funding for people with
disabilities in Western Australia as part of the
2007 budget announcement. Importantly,
the budget provides for further funding
increases in the following three years.
Our challenge is to work with the State
Government to ensure that the needs of
people with disabilities remain at the forefront
of Government social policy as there are still
many needs to be resolved. In early 2007, The
Hon Sheila McHale returned to our sector as
Minister for Disability Services, a move that is
widely applauded and welcomed by people
with disabilities and their families.
The Commonwealth budget has proved
more low-key. In a series of post budget
announcements, however, further funding
increases were promised through a $1.8b
disability assistance package, including
further support for business services such as
Goodwill Engineering. This represented the
most significant funding increase in disability
services by the Commonwealth in a number
of years.
Recurrent funding from all Government
Services is in response to our community
wide need for additional support for people
with disabilities. At the time of writing, the
States and Commonwealth are locked in
negotiations for a new Commonwealth State
Territory Disability Agreement which we are
hopeful will deliver additional support into
this area.
A critical issue over the last several years has
been the recruitment and retention of carers
in not only our Organisation but across
the disability services sector. Anyone who
regularly looks at the news will see that there
are significant shortages of staff in all fields of
endeavour and we are not immune to this.
The impact is greatly felt in our residential
services as The Centre is often forced to
recruit contract labour or use existing staff
on an overtime basis: ultimately this is not
sustainable.
A concerted campaign to raise awareness
amongst politicians at all levels in our
community has finally seen the State
Government announce funding for a
significant pay rise for carers, which when
implemented in the near future should have
a very positive influence on retention rates
amongst our carers. Concurrently, The Centre
launched its ‘CP Carer’ recruitment strategy
including a major advertising campaign in
the local press.
During the year, the sector extensively
lobbied the Minister for a review of the
disability sector to ensure that we continued to
advance the cause of people with disabilities
in the most effective and efficient manner.
The Minister brought to bear a ‘sector health
check’ that has broadly recommended:
•
•
Establishment of a council of not for
profit organisations to meet with the
Disability Services Commission on a
regular basis;
Evidence based long term planning for
people with disabilities;
Better management of funding and its
distribution.
We look forward to working with
Government on the implementation of
these recommendations.
On the services front, The Centre has for
some time faced an ageing population in its
residences and associated increased needs
and medical fragility amongst our residents.
We have responded by employing additional
nursing, dietician, speech pathology and
physiotherapy staff to support our residents
in this area. In addition The Centre engaged
an independent review of its health
management practices and as a result
we are making significant improvements
to documentation, health screening and
medication management.
The Centre, on behalf of our national
organisation CP Australia and in conjunction
with the Australian Institute of Health and
Welfare, launched an Unmet Needs Study in
Therapy and Equipment for People with CP
in Australia, an international first. This wide
ranging study identified unmet need for
therapy and equipment to be up to $60m
nationally. If Western Australia’s share of
this was ever to be granted to The Centre,
it would see our therapy and equipment
services double in size, certainly something
we must strongly continue to advocate for
on behalf of our clients.
During the year we commissioned a new
residential service for nine adults with CP,
expanded our nursing home capacity by an
John Knowles
“The last year proved to
be a challenging and
rewarding year both in
terms of external sector
wide changes and also
new developments
within The Centre.”
additional bed and secured accommodation
support for five people. Despite this, we
still have a substantial waiting list for
accommodation support and we continue
to work on behalf our clients to find solutions
for them. Some key achievements that are not
often given wide recognition but have been
achieved because of the hard work of many
of our ‘behind the scenes’ staff included:
Major capital expansion at Goodwill
Engineering;
Over $1m in capital and project grants;
A major information technology
upgrade;
New industrial agreements with our
staff, and
A new web-site.
I would like to thank all clients, families,
supporters and staff of The Centre for their
support during the year and invite your
continued support for the challenges
ahead!
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