OUR HISTORY
In 2011, UnitingCare Community Options provides a broad range of services for older people, people with disabilities, and carers in Melbourne's east and south-east. Our staff work throughout Boroondara, Knox, Maroondah, Manningham, Monash, Whitehorse, the Yarra Ranges and Greater Dandenong!
However, when UnitingCare Community Options was first established in 1987 under the name Community Options Victoria, our goal was to deliver a pilot program to support older people with dementia living in Boroondara.
With funding provided through the Home and Community Care (HACC) program, we worked to provide community-based care, at a time when only ten percent of aged-care funding was directed this way and 93 percent of older Australians remaining at home.
All this was done from a small office at the back of the Uniting Church hall in Hawthorn, with only a single full-time employee, our former Director, Barbara Potter AM.
Over the next two years, the HACC funding that financed our work grew to include the Commonwealth Government’s Linkages program and Community Options Victoria program had expanded to the point that we were working with 30 people in Kew and Camberwell. Further funding in 1994 enabled the organization to expand its operation to the Waverly area and add 15 new participants to the list of people we worked with. In 1994, Janet Laverick took over as the new Director of the organisation. And by 1995 the organization had grown enough to warrant a move to new office space in Camberwell Road.
1996 was a year of major expansion; the organization’s name changed from Community Options Victoria to Inner East Community Options and its area of influence was expanded to include the municipalities of Boroondara, Whitehorse, and Monash. Accompanying these changes was an expansion of our programs that saw us focus on supporting anyone with complex care needs or disabilities and our list of participants grow to a total of 164 individuals and families.
In 1997 we added a second office location in Oakleigh and several new programs. With the addition of Community Care Packages and Making A Difference 18 Plus funding, we were able to expand even further providing packages of care to almost 300 participants, supported by ten case managers.
1998 saw us consolidate our position as the Inner East’s major provider of case management and brokerage services and we took on further care packages, in particular for young people and children.
These were funded by the Eastern Integrated Solutions Program, a program that combined HACC Linkages funding with Disability Service flexibility services to allow greater flexibility and smoother transitions for people as they shifted from one age group to another or as their needs changed.
In 1999 a third office was opened in Blackburn to ensure local contact points were available for participants in each of the three municipalities. This expansion was accompanied by an increase in the number of care packages to 600, now managed by a total of 19 case managers.
The year 2000 saw our name change once more to reflect an Australia-wide change in the branding of the Uniting Church’s aged and community care agencies. The name UnitingCare was adopted throughout Australia and Inner East Community Options became UnitingCare Community Options. Ronda Held also took over as Chief Executive Officer of the organisation.
Since then we have expanded into carer support. In 2001 we began providing respite services for carers through the National Respite for Carers Program in 2001 and, in 2005, became providers for the Commonwealth Carelink and Carer Centre in the Eastern region. Research partnerships and the work of internal committees saw our service delivery extensively reviewed and a new service model introduced in 2005.
In recent years, we have implemented and evaluated a service model that split the provision of services into an information and referral service, short-term support services, and long-term case management.
This approach is one that is now being implemented more broadly in the community care sector.
Our ongoing commitment to the spiritual needs of our participants through our Outreach and Pastoral Care programs has seen us develop several community programs in partnership with local congregations. These include Boroondara Community Outreach and Crossroads.
Beginning in 2009, and in partnership with Deakin University, we launched a project to develop a new type of consumer-directed service delivery for older people. This resulted in the development of the Assisted Independence Model, which is now being evaluated in a six-month trial in partnership with Alzheimer's Australia (VIC), the Brotherhood of St Laurence, the Council on the Ageing, Carers Victoria and Uniting Aged Care Strathdon.
In December 2009 our new Chief Executive, Scott Sheppard, took over. Under Scott's direction, the organisation has continued to develop and grow. In 2010/2011 we provided support for over 3300 people. We are actively involved in campaigns to reform the Ageing and Disability sectors, in particular the National Disability Insurance Scheme campaign. We are currently investing in the development of personal outcome measures to better assess the impact of our work with participants..
