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In this week’s episode, Geoff chats with Sara Blunt, who is representing Kalyra – Winner’s of the 2023 South Australian Community Achievement Awards – Office for Ageing Well Tackling Ageism Award.
Kalyra is at the forefront of the battle against ageism, recognising the need to break down stereotypes and prejudices. Through the co-location of a Montessori Middle School within Kalyra Woodcroft Aged Care, Kalyra has created a unique platform for intergenerational activities. Students and residents engage in shared experiences, fostering mutual understanding and empathy. Overcoming challenges, including opposition and COVID-19, Kalyra remains dedicated to the cause. Their program is reshaping perceptions of older individuals and challenging ageist assumptions. It exemplifies how intergenerational connections can pave the way for a more inclusive and age-friendly society, ensuring that ageism becomes a thing of the past.
Check out the Kalyra website: https://kalyra.org.au/residential-aged-care/woodcroft/
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Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kalyracommunities/
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Transcript
[00:00:08] Christine
Welcome to Inspirational Australians, where we share stories of Australians making a difference in their communities and in the lives of others. At Inspirational Australians we acknowledge the Wurundjuri and Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Kulin nation as their traditional owners and custodians of the lands and waterways on which this podcast is produced. We pay our respect to elders, past and present, and those who are emerging and extend our respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. At Inspirational Australians, we are inspired by the world’s oldest living culture and pay homage to their rich storytelling history. When we share stories on our podcast,
[00:00:57] Josh
My guest today is Sarah Blunt, who is representing Kalyra, at Woodcraft aged care. They were the winners of the twenty twenty three Office for Aging Well, tackling ageism, award in the twenty twenty three community achievement awards in South Australia. Thanks for chatting with me today, Sarah, and welcome.
[00:01:18] Sara
I thank you and it’s a great pleasure to be here. I do like to talk about Kalyra and what we do and um we’re very proud of Uh of our program down at Kalyra Woodcroft.
[00:01:28] Josh
Fantastic. Well, tell us a bit about the history of Kalyra.
[00:01:32] Sara
Well that’s, that’s quite a story in its, in and of itself. In fact. So um Kalyra was established in eighteen ninety two. We have an extra parliament. So, um and our benefactor is Jesse Brown, but Kalyra story and Jesse Brown’s
[00:01:48] Sara
story really represents the rich tapestry of the Australian history.
[00:01:54] Sara
The good, the bad, and the ugly. So Jesse Brown
[00:01:59] Sara
came out to this country as a young girl from Scotland,
[00:02:02] Sara
and she later married James Brown and James Brown
[00:02:05] Sara
was a pastoralist
[00:02:07] Sara
and James Brown. So with the James Brown
[00:02:09] Sara
memorial trust.
[00:02:10] Sara
So that’s how Jesse set the will in eighteen,
[00:02:13] Sara
, ninety two.
[00:02:14] Sara
James Brown was a pastoralist and
[00:02:16] Sara
when he
[00:02:16] Sara
was a young man
[00:02:17] Sara
down in the South, east of South Australia, he and this is a bit of a, Uh,
[00:02:24] Sara
a bit of a trigger, a little trigger warning story
[00:02:26] Sara
as well. Because
[00:02:27] Sara
um, this takes us
[00:02:29] Sara
back to the
[00:02:30] Sara
days
[00:02:31] Sara
of, um, Uh,
[00:02:33] Sara
, the Frontier wars
[00:02:34] Sara
and what was quite a rough history for our Aboriginal people. Uh
[00:02:40] Sara
so James Brown
[00:02:41] Sara
was charged under the Aboriginal Protection Act um with the murder of nine elderly Aboriginal men, women and Children on the Avenue um ranger’s pastoral lease that he had
[00:02:56] Sara
now the matter um,
[00:02:58] Sara
he was
[00:02:58] Sara
charged but there was
[00:02:59] Sara
no verdict ever found
[00:03:01] Sara
because at the time
[00:03:03] Sara
they didn’t have the right witnesses and it couldn’t be prosecuted successfully under the newly established South Australian law.
[00:03:11] Sara
So that story is a part of
[00:03:13] Sara
Uh,
[00:03:14] Sara
, History and we Uh, own it
[00:03:17] Sara
today because we believe that it’s really important that we don’t hide from
[00:03:22] Sara
Uh, History.
[00:03:23] Sara
. And we have a balanced view of history in this country.
[00:03:26] Sara
Um, and we also believe that
[00:03:28] Sara
it’s for Uh, Aboriginal people to be able to recover from the intergenerational grief and loss of the Frontier wars.
[00:03:36] Sara
Um that
[00:03:37] Sara
it’s um, really
[00:03:38] Sara
important
[00:03:39] Sara
that we acknowledge that these things happened because it’s
[00:03:42] Sara
actually hard to heal from something if
[00:03:45] Sara
nobody acknowledges it.
[00:03:47] Sara
So we acknowledge the facts in our history. Um and we
[00:03:50] Sara
believe that that’s a part of reconciliation and truth telling that will take us forward.
[00:03:55] Sara
So that’s the beginning of our story. And one of the other
[00:03:59] Sara
things that I kind of know this thing I have to say.
[00:04:03] Sara
I
[00:04:04] Sara
didn’t learn about colonization
[00:04:07] Sara
and I
[00:04:07] Sara
didn’t learn about the Frontier wars and I didn’t really learn about the sixty thousand years of rich history that the Aboriginal people have on
[00:04:15] Sara
this continent. When I was at school, I learned about botany Bay. And because I’m in South Australia I
[00:04:20] Sara
learnt about Matthew Flinders.
[00:04:22] Sara
So the other part of this
[00:04:23] Sara
is
[00:04:23] Sara
really um making sure that we have a Uh,
[00:04:27] Sara
, a true balanced picture of Uh,
[00:04:29] Sara
History. And there was some pretty amazing Uh, Aboriginal leaders in
[00:04:33] Sara
those times that
[00:04:35] Sara
Uh
[00:04:36] Sara
tried to fight back against some of the bad things that we
[00:04:39] Sara
did. But also there were
[00:04:41] Sara
equally some great leaders in both sides that tried to bring us together. And I think the establishment of the Aboriginal Protection Act, for example, is a really good example.
[00:04:50] Sara
So that’s where
[00:04:51] Sara
Uh, History kind of starts
[00:04:54] Sara
James Brown. Uh much
[00:04:55] Sara
later at the age of forty married Jesse Brown, who by the end
[00:04:59] Sara
was thirty, she’d already Uh, been married and Uh, had a family um and
[00:05:06] Sara
who
[00:05:06] Sara
hadn’t survived um and Uh,
[00:05:09] Sara
, she came from Mount Barker in the hills here in South Australia and her
[00:05:13] Sara
story
[00:05:14] Sara
is a
[00:05:14] Sara
really amazing
[00:05:15] Sara
journey of survival. She
[00:05:18] Sara
ended up travelling
[00:05:19] Sara
across Australia and a common co-coach at
[00:05:22] Sara
the age of
[00:05:22] Sara
seventeen, with small children going up to Hong Kong to find her
[00:05:26] Sara
husband
[00:05:26] Sara
had died coming back again.
[00:05:28] Sara
Um
[00:05:29] Sara
and so she was quite a resilient and feisty woman in her own
[00:05:34] Sara
right. Anyway, much later when
[00:05:37] Sara
Jesse Brown was um sixty sixty five or sixty six,
[00:05:42] Sara
James died and she Uh, decided
[00:05:45] Sara
that she would sack his solicitors and she would completely rewrite the will.
[00:05:51] Sara
Um by then
[00:05:52] Sara
um James had become quite wealthy enough as his widow, she was quite wealthy in her own right. And she
[00:05:59] Sara
rewrote the will
[00:06:00] Sara
to be Uh, Uh, Uh, an
[00:06:03] Sara
Act of parliament
[00:06:04] Sara
Uh, in
[00:06:05] Sara
memory of
[00:06:06] Sara
James
[00:06:06] Sara
Brown, which would
[00:06:07] Sara
provide services for people in need to ensure a quality of life going forward. Um, and that’s then what the trust was set up to do.
[00:06:17] Sara
And interestingly, the first
[00:06:19] Sara
trust that was established, the first board of
[00:06:21] Sara
trustees had a mixture of
[00:06:24] Sara
cultural, different cultural groups um skill sets of businessmen
[00:06:29] Sara
and also had Catherine Helen
[00:06:30] Sara
Spence who was the first woman to ever stand for parliament in Australia.
[00:06:36] Sara
So um, you know, Right back then
[00:06:38] Sara
they had a gender mix, a culture mix and a skill mix, which is what the best
[00:06:42] Sara
practice is today. So that’s a pretty amazing bit of history and we have
[00:06:47] Sara
been building on that ever since. So initial services were around
[00:06:51] Sara
Uh,
[00:06:52] Sara
, responding to
[00:06:53] Sara
paediatrics children Services, particularly um, relating to
[00:06:57] Sara
polio because that was rife in the community in those days.
[00:07:01] Sara
Um and then later on
[00:07:04] Sara
we became the sanatorium for tuberculosis in South Australia. Moved into
[00:07:09] Sara
providing
[00:07:10] Sara
community Health services, community Uh sort of hospital type services. Um
[00:07:15] Sara
and then
[00:07:15] Sara
pivoted in the late eighties to the model that we have today, which is around services for older people
[00:07:23] Sara
based on
[00:07:23] Sara
demographic need in effect.
[00:07:26] Sara
So we have um, residential
[00:07:28] Sara
aged care, which is what we’ll Uh, where the Montessori school psychiatrist. So that
[00:07:33] Sara
what we think of as more
[00:07:34] Sara
traditional nursing homes, I guess
[00:07:36] Sara
um we have retirement living.
[00:07:38] Sara
Um and we have Uh, affordable housing for people who’d otherwise be homeless and we
[00:07:43] Sara
have help at home Services to support
[00:07:46] Sara
people living at home in their community who want to stay in their homes for as long as they can.
[00:07:51] Josh
Uh, quite a huge Uh, Spectrum of services that you provide and have provided over the journey.
[00:07:58] Sara
So
[00:07:58] Josh
yes, Sarah, what’s, what’s your role at Kalyra?
[00:08:02] Sara
So I’m the chief executive officer. And so I oversee, I report to the board
[00:08:07] Sara
of trustees,
[00:08:08] Sara
and I
[00:08:09] Sara
oversee the entire business model for Kalyra.
[00:08:13] Sara
. And we provide services
[00:08:15] Sara
across the Adelaide
[00:08:16] Sara
hills through the southern suburbs, the
[00:08:18] Sara
Florio
[00:08:19] Sara
peninsula and around to Murray
[00:08:20] Sara
bridge and back again. Well, that’s really where our footprint is in the mine.
[00:08:25] Josh
So how many residents would you have, or people in retirement within your facilities? Uh so I guess.
[00:08:36] Sara
Well, we’ve got, we know that’s two hundred and
[00:08:39] Sara
fifteen. Uh, Uh,
[00:08:40] Sara
, residents in
[00:08:41] Sara
Uh, three
[00:08:42] Sara
residential aged
[00:08:42] Sara
care facilities.
[00:08:44] Sara
Um, one
[00:08:44] Sara
of which is the one that’s undergoing
[00:08:47] Sara
Uh
[00:08:47] Sara
refurbishment at the moment behind me.
[00:08:49] Sara
And then we have about entitle, I would say about two thousand Uh clients, tenants, residents
[00:08:58] Sara
in Uh, retirement living plus the residential aged care.
[00:09:03] Josh
pennhurst is huge. Yeah. Well, finally, the
[00:09:07] Sara
older people receiving our
[00:09:08] Sara
services. Yeah, it’s great.
[00:09:09] Josh
I’ve got no grey hair either. So Uh that’s
[00:09:13] Sara
just a few shy few.
[00:09:16] Josh
Uh that’s, that’s amazing. How many facilities are there in total?
[00:09:22] Sara
So we have um, six retirement villages. We have three residential aged care facilities. We have five
[00:09:29] Sara
sites of
[00:09:30] Sara
affordable housing. And then we have
[00:09:33] Sara
community Services extending into people’s homes right across the geographical area I just described. Yeah. All
[00:09:40] Josh
right, that’s Uh, that’s extraordinary. So what would you say are the key aims and purposes of Kalyra? I mean, you sort of cabinet off, but what, what’s the main purpose?
[00:09:51] Sara
So, so today, so we’ve just been working on this. How do we
[00:09:55] Sara
translate Jesse Brown’s vision
[00:09:57] Sara
of providing quality
[00:09:59] Sara
services for people in
[00:10:00] Sara
need today in the twenty
[00:10:01] Sara
first century? And what does that
[00:10:03] Sara
mean because it’s very
[00:10:04] Sara
different obviously to what it was in nineteen ninety two.
[00:10:07] Sara
So we say that we exist, so people can
[00:10:10] Sara
live in communities where they feel they belong enhancing, living.
[00:10:15] Sara
And the reason that we have
[00:10:16] Sara
Moved to that
[00:10:17] Sara
description is because we know from the evidence that’s come out of
[00:10:21] Sara
Harvard recently, that the single biggest
[00:10:25] Sara
Uh, determiner
[00:10:26] Sara
of
[00:10:27] Sara
people’s quality of life
[00:10:28] Sara
and their longevity of life.
[00:10:30] Sara
Uh is their
[00:10:31] Sara
relationships and their community and their sense of belonging
[00:10:35] Sara
and that trumps
[00:10:36] Sara
everything.
[00:10:37] Sara
So
[00:10:37] Sara
that’s what our focus is.
[00:10:40] Josh
Fantastic. Uh, and one of the key things that helps set that apart for Kalyra, I believe, is the co-location with young people at Montessori. Uh, can you tell us a bit about how that works and how this is beneficial for residents?
[00:10:58] Sara
Yep,
[00:10:58] Sara
, sure. So we have a really big
[00:11:01] Sara
focus on supporting people to lead the lives that they
[00:11:04] Sara
want. And what we know
[00:11:06] Sara
is
[00:11:07] Sara
that it
[00:11:08] Sara
shouldn’t be a barrier. Um
[00:11:10] Sara
and our normal lives Uh, with a mixture
[00:11:12] Sara
of people across all age ranges.
[00:11:15] Sara
We believe that
[00:11:16] Sara
intergenerational peace is really important. The site that we
[00:11:21] Sara
have.
[00:11:21] Sara
. Uh, Kalyra
[00:11:22] Sara
Woodcraft.
[00:11:23] Sara
Uh Janet
[00:11:23] Sara
Moffat
[00:11:24] Sara
vale.
[00:11:24] Sara
. We were doing
[00:11:25] Sara
a big refurbishment there. So the site was, had been Uh,
[00:11:30] Sara
, established twenty or thirty years before and we were
[00:11:33] Sara
rebuilding it for the twenty first century.
[00:11:35] Sara
And in the process we needed to be really
[00:11:37] Sara
open and transparent and say to people who were coming in. You know, you need to know you’re going to be living through a very big building process here.
[00:11:45] Sara
So if that doesn’t suit
[00:11:46] Sara
you, now’s not the time, but
[00:11:49] Sara
um, in doing so,
[00:11:50] Sara
we also were explaining about how we were building a community hub. We were putting in a cafe and a
[00:11:55] Sara
gym, and a hairdresser
[00:11:56] Sara
and all these things and, and that we wanted that community hub to be something that people from outside would come into as well.
[00:12:04] Sara
And um, so
[00:12:06] Sara
a
[00:12:06] Sara
woman
[00:12:06] Sara
was on a tour.
[00:12:07] Sara
And she said to the site manager,
[00:12:11] Sara
she was looking for her
[00:12:12] Sara
grandmother and
[00:12:13] Sara
she said, you know, this might sound really out there, but you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t be able to fit in a Montessori middle School, would you?
[00:12:20] Sara
And he said, I don’t see why not. Um I’ll ask so that
[00:12:26] Sara
little opportunity
[00:12:28] Sara
presented
[00:12:29] Sara
and Uh
[00:12:30] Sara
spoke to the board,
[00:12:31] Sara
, spoke to the school, spoke to
[00:12:34] Sara
the architects to
[00:12:35] Sara
see what we could bring together.
[00:12:37] Sara
And their
[00:12:38] Sara
story was that the southern Montessori school had started as quite a small school and grown rapidly.
[00:12:44] Sara
And they’d grown from being just a
[00:12:46] Sara
primary school to offering a middle School years.
[00:12:49] Sara
And then growing so fast that they’d had, they
[00:12:52] Sara
ended up in a school hall in a council
[00:12:54] Sara
hall. And I had to pack up every day.
[00:12:56] Sara
. So other people could use the hall or
[00:12:58] Sara
not, and they were having this terrible
[00:13:00] Sara
challenge finding somewhere for the school.
[00:13:03] Sara
And we had a little
[00:13:05] Sara
bit of land
[00:13:06] Sara
with
[00:13:06] Sara
a
[00:13:06] Sara
building on that. We were going to
[00:13:07] Sara
use to do administration and things from
[00:13:10] Sara
during the build and then
[00:13:12] Sara
do something different with later. And that turned into the school. So
[00:13:16] Sara
it was quite a big project
[00:13:18] Sara
when nobody had done it before.
[00:13:19] Sara
. So we had a lot
[00:13:20] Sara
of things to work through.
[00:13:23] Sara
We were very excited, we shared the whole idea with the
[00:13:25] Sara
community.
[00:13:27] Sara
Um
[00:13:27] Sara
and
[00:13:27] Sara
then found that not
[00:13:28] Sara
everybody in the community was
[00:13:29] Sara
excited. So we had a lot of Community
[00:13:31] Sara
engagement to
[00:13:32] Sara
do
[00:13:32] Sara
to explore all of that. Um, but we got there and we finished it
[00:13:37] Sara
in
[00:13:38] Sara
July twenty twenty.
[00:13:40] Sara
Which of course
[00:13:41] Sara
meant
[00:13:41] Sara
we
[00:13:42] Sara
couldn’t
[00:13:42] Sara
open any of the
[00:13:43] Sara
doors connecting us
[00:13:45] Sara
because
[00:13:45] Sara
everything was locked down because of covid. Yeah, that’s right.
[00:13:50] Sara
So that was all a
[00:13:51] Sara
pretty big challenge.
[00:13:53] Sara
So the school um sits
[00:13:55] Sara
right next door, snug up to the residential aged care facility.
[00:14:00] Sara
And we built during covid, we built a pizza oven
[00:14:03] Sara
outside in between the two because covid was an issue. So we thought that was a way of getting around that. Uh
[00:14:10] Sara
and the children now are
[00:14:12] Sara
able to go in and out of the facility.
[00:14:15] Sara
Pretty well freely, although we’ve still got
[00:14:17] Sara
a little bit of the covid stuff happening around the place from
[00:14:19] Sara
time to time. And it’s been fantastic and we’re
[00:14:22] Sara
about to
[00:14:23] Sara
have a challenge with
[00:14:25] Sara
the um, with a big bowling challenge that’s going to be run this year between the school and the people in the aged care facility.
[00:14:33] Sara
Um we’ve got
[00:14:34] Sara
children who are Uh, interviewing
[00:14:36] Sara
and
[00:14:37] Sara
capturing life stories of residents. Um
[00:14:40] Sara
Uh we have a resident who would
[00:14:42] Sara
like to go into the school and talk history because they have got a great passion for history.
[00:14:48] Sara
So
[00:14:48] Sara
lots of different things happening. Uh so it’s been fantastic and
[00:14:53] Sara
what I really like about
[00:14:54] Sara
it is
[00:14:55] Sara
that because they’re
[00:14:56] Sara
close and we have a close relationship,
[00:14:59] Sara
we’re
[00:14:59] Sara
able to
[00:14:59] Sara
be a
[00:15:00] Sara
bit more spontaneous and pick up on the strengths of the people around and their interests and bring those things to
[00:15:06] Sara
fruition,
[00:15:07] Sara
so it’s really heartwarming.
[00:15:09] Sara
And the other
[00:15:10] Sara
interesting thing because, you know, this is about tackling ageism. It is that the
[00:15:16] Sara
children will
[00:15:17] Sara
say, Uh, I wasn’t sure what these people were going to be like, but they’re actually really nice. And,
[00:15:24] Sara
you know, and some of the older people
[00:15:25] Sara
said, I wasn’t sure just how these kids would
[00:15:28] Sara
behave, but actually, so it
[00:15:31] Sara
proves that once we get to know each other, we look past the stereotypes. Yes, that’s really important. Oh
[00:15:38] Josh
my next question is when do I move in? Uh, Uh, sounds like a terrific ethos that you have within your facilities and Uh, clearly very progressive. And in that progressiveness what other activities are undertaken at Kalyra to to battle ageism referred to. And how does that help break down stereotypes?
[00:16:05] Sara
Well, I mean interestingly just
[00:16:07] Sara
to going back to the reference to the school,
[00:16:10] Sara
one of the
[00:16:10] Sara
teachers said to me when we were chatting just recently and she in her thirties,
[00:16:14] Sara
she said, you
[00:16:15] Sara
know, it’s been really good for me too because I was a bit daunted about how this was going to go and what these people would be like.
[00:16:24] Sara
So she said it’s
[00:16:25] Sara
actually been fantastic for me. So I think that, um,
[00:16:29] Sara
anything
[00:16:30] Sara
we can do to break down the stereotypes to Uh,
[00:16:34] Sara
, enable people
[00:16:35] Sara
to connect with community to be a part of Community to have the conversations and get to know each other is really important.
[00:16:45] Sara
For example, we have
[00:16:46] Sara
a um, a history book which tells the story of um,
[00:16:51] Sara
Jesse Brown and the
[00:16:52] Sara
History of Kalyra and
[00:16:54] Sara
James Brown. And when we were
[00:16:57] Sara
rewriting
[00:16:58] Sara
that
[00:16:59] Sara
and gathering all the information. Uh we asked for a
[00:17:02] Sara
committee
[00:17:02] Sara
of volunteers from across all of our services.
[00:17:05] Sara
Uh anybody who was interested. And um,
[00:17:09] Sara
, we got a great group of people who had Uh, all sorts of different skill sets,
[00:17:14] Sara
including research
[00:17:15] Sara
skill sets and historical knowledge who went off and
[00:17:18] Sara
went down to the mortlock
[00:17:19] Sara
library. And, you know, got copies of letters that were written at the time of James Brown and things like that.
[00:17:25] Sara
And together we,
[00:17:27] Sara
we, we wrote that book
[00:17:29] Sara
and it’s easy in,
[00:17:31] Sara
if, if you aren’t
[00:17:33] Sara
willing to
[00:17:33] Sara
always be thinking about tackling ageism,
[00:17:36] Sara
it’s
[00:17:36] Sara
easy to
[00:17:36] Sara
slide into, oh, we’ll just
[00:17:37] Sara
do it ourselves.
[00:17:39] Sara
Um, but
[00:17:39] Sara
actually there’s
[00:17:41] Sara
people out there who are,
[00:17:42] Sara
you know, willing and able to be a part
[00:17:45] Sara
and um and to contribute.
[00:17:47] Sara
So I think that’s something else that we show and
[00:17:49] Sara
we show
[00:17:50] Sara
and
[00:17:50] Sara
how
[00:17:51] Sara
we respond to people influences other people.
[00:17:55] Sara
And I remember um my mother, my mother was
[00:17:59] Sara
um, Uh she had alzheimer’s disease and she
[00:18:01] Sara
was a
[00:18:02] Sara
resident living here.
[00:18:04] Sara
Um and we had her eighth birthday here which was a January
[00:18:07] Sara
birthday. So we knew it was going to be hot weather
[00:18:10] Sara
and all of the people that were attending the
[00:18:12] Sara
birthday were, you know, people in their eighties
[00:18:15] Sara
um
[00:18:15] Sara
and
[00:18:16] Sara
family members. And afterwards I got lovely letters
[00:18:20] Sara
from people saying, you know, thank you very much. It was a lovely party and it
[00:18:24] Sara
was so easy to
[00:18:27] Sara
you dropped my husband off with his walking frame or
[00:18:29] Sara
my grandma or whatever it was.
[00:18:31] Sara
And that, you know, it was so easy to use the
[00:18:33] Sara
bathroom and the staff were all smiled at us and
[00:18:38] Sara
were welcoming. And I think we forget just how Uh, how good we are at that, you know, care at seeing the person
[00:18:48] Sara
and enabling people. And one of the staff said to
[00:18:52] Sara
me when I was telling them, this is lovely feedback. One of the staff in
[00:18:55] Sara
hospitality said, oh
[00:18:56] Sara
yes, well, she said I used to work in hotels and pubs. And she said, if we had seventieth or eightieth birthdays often
[00:19:04] Sara
people were really nervous
[00:19:05] Sara
about it,
[00:19:06] Sara
because often someone would have a
[00:19:08] Sara
fall or get trapped in a toilet.
[00:19:11] Sara
It
[00:19:11] Sara
was
[00:19:11] Sara
just scary. And she said, but
[00:19:14] Sara
here everything is easy because it’s designed
[00:19:17] Sara
for that. And
[00:19:19] Sara
people know how to respond to other people and to assist them. So it’s no problem. And I thought, gosh, wouldn’t it be nice if the whole world was geared that way? So that’s what we’re aiming for.
[00:19:30] Josh
Well, that sounds fantastic. Um, so how do you talk to about the perception, how do you change the perceptions of the broader community towards tackling ageism?
[00:19:43] Sara
So I guess part of it leadership, so we talk
[00:19:46] Sara
about what we do and we show people as we did, I suppose having the
[00:19:50] Sara
party for my mum as we
[00:19:52] Sara
do with the school.
[00:19:53] Sara
Um, so it’s sort of
[00:19:55] Sara
leading by
[00:19:55] Sara
example. Part of it is, and I say to the staff, you know, every single
[00:20:00] Sara
one of them is a leader in this space. Every
[00:20:03] Sara
single one of
[00:20:04] Sara
them when they’re out in the
[00:20:05] Sara
community, how they smile
[00:20:06] Sara
older people and assist them or, or just relaxed around them is, is showing other people how they can also interact with an older person who perhaps has got a walking frame or perhaps has got a hearing issue or
[00:20:21] Sara
whatever it might be. Um so,
[00:20:24] Sara
so,
[00:20:24] Sara
, so we’re all
[00:20:25] Sara
ambassadors to, to tackle and to, to represent Kalyra.
[00:20:29] Sara
And we also
[00:20:31] Sara
will go out and you know, we speak, we tell the story of Kalyra um and we talk about tackling ageism
[00:20:38] Sara
publicly. So I might go
[00:20:40] Sara
to, um, um, you know rotary meetings and things like that in local community groups. Might ask us to talk about Kalyra to represent the um sector. Um we got this award and this is giving us a reach out into the community that we wouldn’t otherwise have.
[00:20:58] Sara
Uh we try and post
[00:20:59] Sara
um some of our
[00:21:00] Sara
stories and what we’re getting up to
[00:21:02] Sara
and what residents are doing Uh, on our Facebook page and um, and we
[00:21:07] Sara
do our best to
[00:21:08] Sara
encourage people to go out of Kalyra and not just die in choleraKalyraSo um, you know, we were discussing at a retirement village the other day.
[00:21:17] Sara
Some of
[00:21:17] Sara
the people were talking
[00:21:18] Sara
about a men’s shed and they said, we’ve decided we don’t want to
[00:21:22] Sara
have a men’s shed here. We want you to make sure that we can continue to access the one at the local council that we’re a strong part of as a community. That’s what we would like to see. And I said, that’s exactly
[00:21:35] Sara
exactly what we want to do. Yeah.
[00:21:37] Sara
So, so those are the sorts of examples I suppose and, you know, we’ll go out and speak at schools and we’ll go anywhere really.
[00:21:46] Josh
So what are some of the other social impacts on residents that you programs have?
[00:21:52] Sara
So the aim is to
[00:21:53] Sara
enhance life.
[00:21:54] Sara
Um and to
[00:21:56] Sara
enable people to really enjoy life. You know, people might have some pretty big physical challenges um or cognitive challenges.
[00:22:06] Sara
And so it’s about knowing the person and being with
[00:22:11] Sara
them so
[00:22:11] Sara
that you
[00:22:11] Sara
can read them and support them to do things.
[00:22:15] Sara
So
[00:22:15] Sara
when my mum was here,
[00:22:17] Sara
Um I remember,
[00:22:18] Sara
you know, I’d say to her, oh you know, and what have you been up to? Oh, not
[00:22:22] Sara
much.
[00:22:23] Sara
Which is actually because she couldn’t quite bring it up quickly. But
[00:22:27] Sara
um I would say pictures of
[00:22:28] Sara
her and she’d been down on
[00:22:30] Sara
a, on a bus, down to Adelaide Oval and had a tour of Adelaide Oval which she loved in the moment,
[00:22:36] Sara
but wasn’t necessarily able to tell me about afterwards. Yeah. So,
[00:22:39] Sara
um, yeah, so
[00:22:41] Sara
those are the sorts of things that we continue to try and evolve and develop and support people to do.
[00:22:47] Josh
That’s awesome. And how do you engage staff? I mean, obviously you referred to your staff before and Uh, staff are a key part of the residence life. And those in your retirement villages, staff are really important. Have a really important part to play with residents, no doubt. How do you engage your staff with tackling, tackling ageism and what programs might you have that really help to do that? Yeah,
[00:23:19] Sara
so we have,
[00:23:20] Sara
well
[00:23:20] Sara
we have the
[00:23:21] Sara
values of Colorado, so I probably should just touch on
[00:23:24] Sara
that. Um, so our values
[00:23:26] Sara
are
[00:23:26] Sara
um, caring daily acts of
[00:23:29] Sara
kindness. Um
[00:23:30] Sara
we talk about enabling
[00:23:32] Sara
others
[00:23:32] Sara
which
[00:23:32] Sara
is making things possible.
[00:23:35] Sara
Being a community
[00:23:36] Sara
in which we
[00:23:38] Sara
are whole, but we also have every
[00:23:41] Sara
individual
[00:23:41] Sara
recognized
[00:23:42] Sara
within that
[00:23:43] Sara
building on strength. So everybody has a value.
[00:23:46] Sara
Everybody has a strength that we can build on
[00:23:48] Sara
and
[00:23:49] Sara
commitment to being here for the right reason. So there are values that drive our behaviors.
[00:23:54] Sara
And then we’ve also got what we call the color
[00:23:57] Sara
of partnership, which is about being an equal partner with the person that we’re providing services to. Um and that’s about not making assumptions about the person. Oh assumptions. It’s about really
[00:24:09] Sara
knowing the
[00:24:09] Sara
person and it’s about taking action
[00:24:12] Sara
and using that as
[00:24:13] Sara
an ethos that drives our model of care. We believe that it enables us to
[00:24:21] Sara
tackle ageism
[00:24:22] Sara
because it prevents us from stereotyping in a sense, if we really adhere to that partnership and being an equal partner and really
[00:24:30] Sara
adhere to
[00:24:31] Sara
those values, then that will take us past any stereotypes we might have in our mind about ageism and we do do quite a bit of training on diversity um and stereotypes and how we respond to the individual as well.
[00:24:47] Sara
And person centered
[00:24:48] Sara
care of course is a really important part of the the standards that we have here in Australia and that national aged care standards. Um
[00:24:56] Sara
and the Montessori Maria
[00:24:58] Sara
Montessori principle,
[00:25:00] Sara
which she set up for schools was about doing with not
[00:25:04] Sara
for and that principle actually applies across the generations as well. Awesome.
[00:25:11] Josh
Well going back to the Uh, seven years community achievement awards. Gala presentation ceremony at the Stamford grand Adelaide. Uh, late last year. You were a finalist in the office for ageing well tackling ageism award and I think we now have a good understanding of why that was must been an incredible thrill and acknowledgement of and validation of the important work that you’re doing to become a finalist. But then to win the award must have been just a real thrill.
[00:25:46] Sara
It was fantastic. It was absolutely fantastic. And especially because, you know, as I said before,
[00:25:53] Sara
we, we,
[00:25:54] Sara
, we started this relationship
[00:25:56] Sara
in the build and
[00:25:57] Sara
then
[00:25:57] Sara
covid
[00:25:58] Sara
happened. So everything kind of
[00:26:01] Sara
stopped while
[00:26:02] Sara
the aged care sector responded to covid and the
[00:26:04] Sara
doors locked. And
[00:26:05] Sara
we
[00:26:05] Sara
learned how to wear masks and all of those things that we’ll probably would
[00:26:11] Sara
prefer to forget now. Um, but that
[00:26:14] Sara
absolutely, you know, kind of stopped us in our tracks.
[00:26:18] Sara
And then as we started to
[00:26:19] Sara
emerge from, from that and started to rebuild the relationship with the school and um, um and open the doors again and um, move forward
[00:26:29] Sara
to have the award at that point in time. Was
[00:26:32] Sara
like an absolute shot in the um you
[00:26:34] Sara
know, it really re-energised everybody and really sort
[00:26:38] Sara
of fast track bringing us all back together again.
[00:26:41] Sara
Um and we had some of
[00:26:42] Sara
the school teachers with us that night at the awards, which was fabulous. Yeah, it was
[00:26:47] Sara
really
[00:26:47] Sara
powerful, I think for the entire team, all the people that had done all of this work. Yeah.
[00:26:53] Josh
I’m sure it resonated right through to residents, staff, and all those involved in the facilities. And in particular for the, for the nomination of that.
[00:27:04] Sara
That’s right.
[00:27:05] Josh
Yeah. And so, Uh that’s, that’s really exciting. And it was there a key takeaway from the awards, not something that stands in your mind from the event itself.
[00:27:17] Sara
It was a fabulous event. It
[00:27:19] Sara
really
[00:27:19] Sara
Uh, reminded me
[00:27:22] Sara
of
[00:27:22] Sara
the, you know, the value of
[00:27:24] Sara
strong communities
[00:27:25] Sara
and some of the
[00:27:27] Sara
awards that were
[00:27:28] Sara
um, Uh, given out that not aside from us, were
[00:27:32] Sara
really inspiring as well. And the people that were there were incredibly inspiring and that community recognition is such a um,
[00:27:41] Sara
an affirming validating
[00:27:44] Sara
piece. That’s so encouraging. It’s yeah, it was great.
[00:27:48] Josh
Yeah, I always find it inspiring. Been doing it for thirty five years and yeah, Uh, continue to get goosebumps and be so inspired by the amazing stories. We hear all too often the negatives in Uh, in the well, but there are so many good things. So many good people, really making a contribution.
[00:28:07] Sara
So that’s right.
[00:28:10] Josh
As, as winning the award helped your work. Do you think at all?
[00:28:14] Sara
Uh, definitely. So like I said, it’s in the, in the short term it’s just lifted everybody’s energy and encouraged us and kind of helped us shake off the,
[00:28:23] Sara
I don’t know covid
[00:28:24] Sara
blues
[00:28:24] Sara
if you
[00:28:24] Sara
like. Um and it’s also really encouraged us to
[00:28:27] Sara
think bigger.
[00:28:29] Sara
Um
[00:28:29] Sara
and
[00:28:30] Sara
um and it’s
[00:28:30] Sara
promoted us
[00:28:31] Sara
to a
[00:28:31] Sara
broader community and I was pretty excited this morning because I was down at Woodcraft
[00:28:36] Sara
and
[00:28:37] Sara
we’ve joined the Australian intergenerational. I can’t quite remember that in that
[00:28:46] Sara
anyway, I joined it and one of our staff
[00:28:49] Sara
is flying up to Brisbane in February
[00:28:52] Sara
and going to a big workshop
[00:28:54] Sara
there. Uh,
[00:28:55] Sara
in order to help us
[00:28:56] Sara
really, um, Uh,
[00:28:58] Sara
expand our skillset around policy development and structure and how we
[00:29:05] Sara
can do this even better. Because in a sense,
[00:29:07] Sara
, this is
[00:29:08] Sara
the flagship program for camera.
[00:29:11] Sara
But we want to grow
[00:29:13] Sara
intergenerational
[00:29:14] Sara
right across all of our services,
[00:29:16] Sara
not just at the residential aged care where we have the um, the school
[00:29:21] Josh
is absolutely brilliant. Um and I and I must say a very big thank you to the office for aging well for their significant contribution. Their support has been tremendous over the past number of years as our gold plus partner. And of course technically tackling ageism is so critical. Uh, in, in today’s society we Uh, I was only reflecting when you were talking we Uh, we have grandparents and we love them dearly, but then you step away from that environment we, we are not quite sure how to handle other people’s grandparents if you like. Yeah. So Uh, I think what you’re doing is fabulous and to be promoting the value of tackling ageism is really critical for all parties. Not just Uh, the people who Uh, who Uh, slightly getting older, but for all generations. And nominations for the seven year community achievement awards. Will be opening again soon. So would you encourage listeners to nominate someone?
[00:30:30] Sara
Absolutely, because like I said, it’s been fantastic for us. Also. The other thing about it is that the process is
[00:30:38] Sara
well supported. It
[00:30:39] Sara
wasn’t, it wasn’t a really onerous hard application
[00:30:44] Sara
process. It was really well supported and people
[00:30:47] Sara
sent me
[00:30:47] Sara
reminders so that I, you know, because it’s a pretty busy life we have here at colour. So it was, it was a great process to be a part of as well. And I really enjoyed the awards night. That was great, fun.
[00:30:59] Josh
Excellent. Well, if any of our listeners would like to know more about the award they’d like to nominate someone or let us know someone that they feel should be nominated, you can drop me a line at Jeff geo. Jeff at awards, Australia dot com, or get on to the awards Australia dot com website. And if anybody can think of someone that might like to sponsor an award, then they can contact me as well. So Sarah, what’s something we might not know about Kalyra, you know, some pretty amazing history. Fascinating. In fact, Uh and I love the fact that you own Uh, the goods and the beds, you know, and I just find that’s refreshing. Uh, there are a lot of terrible things that happen throughout history, but to, to acknowledge it is, is really important. So I
[00:31:57] Sara
think, yeah, Uh, and just on that point, you know, I
[00:32:00] Sara
mean we’re all human and we’re all you know, um,
[00:32:04] Sara
capable of
[00:32:05] Sara
doing
[00:32:05] Sara
things that we might
[00:32:06] Sara
not
[00:32:07] Sara
even
[00:32:07] Sara
realize at the time a bad things. But later on that’s how it’s interpreted. And I think it’s really important that we own all of that and we learn from it because you know, what is that
[00:32:19] Sara
thing you know, otherwise we’re
[00:32:20] Sara
doomed to repeat the mistakes of history. So um really,
[00:32:24] Sara
, um,
[00:32:25] Sara
, embracing history I think is, Uh, is a really important Uh, an important piece for us all because we do, we do learn. Yeah. And it’s not always it’s can be confronting, but we need to be confronted sometimes. Yeah. Um.
[00:32:40] Josh
So what drives Kalyra to continue to improve service? What’s your main driver?
[00:32:46] Sara
Uh well, I think continuous improvement in a sense is in our DNA right from the very beginning.
[00:32:52] Sara
Kalyra has Uh,
[00:32:54] Sara
, looked to
[00:32:55] Sara
always improve to build on what it’s doing to
[00:32:59] Sara
be sustainable to be
[00:33:01] Sara
here for the long term.
[00:33:02] Sara
Um and um, Uh and that continuous improvement
[00:33:08] Sara
responding to need and looking forward. I think it’s just in our DNA. I think it comes from Jesse Brown. There you go.
[00:33:16] Josh
There you go. Just Brown. She sounds like an impressive woman.
[00:33:20] Sara
I think so I, I think she’s one of those women that um, should have her Uh, story
[00:33:25] Sara
should be much better known across South Australia.
[00:33:27] Josh
The Senate, why tomatoes, she sounds extraordinary. What’s the next project for Kalyra?
[00:33:35] Sara
Well, as I said, I think we’re talking about um reigniting. Uh intergenerational
[00:33:40] Sara
programs
[00:33:41] Sara
so that
[00:33:41] Sara
um and
[00:33:42] Sara
really expanding it across the
[00:33:44] Sara
whole
[00:33:45] Sara
of Kalyra. Um we’re also um right now
[00:33:49] Sara
we’re um really working towards embedding our partnership model and refreshing. All of that. Um and Uh looking at the
[00:33:58] Sara
model of care
[00:33:59] Sara
at Kalyra Woodcraft so that we really enable people to live the their best life. Um Uh we’ve got new um, legislation and new systems and things that are coming from the changes that are happening
[00:34:13] Sara
Uh, federally. Um, so there we’re also looking at
[00:34:18] Sara
the
[00:34:19] Sara
Uh, challenges of
[00:34:20] Sara
housing, particularly for older people right now here in South Australia
[00:34:25] Sara
and what that means for Kalyra
[00:34:26] Sara
and growth in that space.
[00:34:28] Sara
Um, and we’re a part of a um, a project down at McLaren vale whereby
[00:34:33] Sara
the McLaren vale hospital is no longer offering um services
[00:34:38] Sara
though,
[00:34:39] Sara
so its hospital services have
[00:34:40] Sara
closed. But the
[00:34:43] Sara
community
[00:34:43] Sara
board
[00:34:44] Sara
that
[00:34:44] Sara
runs that oversees the
[00:34:45] Sara
hospital
[00:34:46] Sara
site have got a
[00:34:47] Sara
number of other initiatives that are being run there. So
[00:34:50] Sara
they’re um,
[00:34:51] Sara
, working towards
[00:34:53] Sara
merging with Kalyra so that we,
[00:34:55] Sara
, we will continue to support all of those
[00:34:57] Sara
services and develop a
[00:34:59] Sara
wellbeing kind of precinct for the future. So um we know GP services are incredibly important to communities. Uh, and particularly where there are older people. Uh and
[00:35:12] Sara
um, so,
[00:35:13] Sara
and what else we can do in that sort of space. So
[00:35:17] Sara
supporting carers in their
[00:35:19] Sara
homes by
[00:35:21] Sara
having perhaps
[00:35:21] Sara
day programs looking into palliative programs, looking into
[00:35:27] Sara
gyms and allied health to support preventative health for um, older people. So they’re all
[00:35:34] Sara
programs that we’re actively looking towards developing over the next few years under the Uh, strategies of this strategic plan. So pretty exciting time.
[00:35:43] Josh
Certainly no less that that’s for sure.
[00:35:46] Sara
Not alone. Uh
[00:35:48] Josh
and again, well worthy of winning the office for aging well award. Do you have any words of wisdom or any others? Uh words of wisdom for our listeners.
[00:36:02] Sara
Um, I suppose if
[00:36:04] Sara
you really want to
[00:36:07] Sara
live well um, particularly into older age, then it starts
[00:36:11] Sara
with you right
[00:36:12] Sara
now wherever you are or whatever age you are. Um
[00:36:15] Sara
because it’s really important that we look
[00:36:17] Sara
after
[00:36:18] Sara
Uh, mental health Uh physical health.
[00:36:21] Sara
And we continue to grow and
[00:36:23] Sara
develop as individuals um
[00:36:26] Sara
and pay attention to
[00:36:27] Sara
those things. It’s really easy to get caught up in the busyness of work and you know um
[00:36:33] Sara
all the entertainment and media and things that are given to us. Um, but we need to remember to
[00:36:39] Sara
look after our physical selves and our mental cells. Uh because that’s really important.
[00:36:46] Josh
Right. Advice? Yeah. Where can our listeners connect with Kalyra online and find out more about your work and the services you provide?
[00:36:57] Sara
Um, so the website is Kalyra K A L Y R re dot Org dot edu. And
[00:37:05] Sara
Uh you’ll find all about us there.
[00:37:08] Sara
And if you want to,
[00:37:09] Sara
, there’s a, there are contacts and I can always send you a copy of the history book.
[00:37:13] Sara
Beautiful. If you that way Claude
[00:37:16] Josh
plantation go through the website they can get access to that. Yep. Terrific. Well, Sarah, it’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast today. What a Fascinating story of colour you do such an important work there at Kalyra and it sounds like it’s just getting bigger and better. Uh and sounds like a great place to think about for our futures. Thanks so much for sharing some of your story with us.
[00:37:49] Sara
Thank you. It’s been a great pleasure to chat to you. I
[00:37:52] Sara
like talking about Kalyra.
[00:37:54] Josh
I can tell. Well, I hope everybody’s enjoyed listening to the story of Kalyra. Until next week, please be kind because together we make a difference.
[00:38:09] Christine
The inspirational australian’s podcast is brought to you by awards, Australia. We recognise, celebrate and share the stories of inspirational Australians throughout awards programs across the country. To find out more, to nominate an inspirational Australian in your life, or to partner with our awards, visit awards, Australia dot com. If you enjoyed today’s story, we’d love it if you could subscribe rate and review to make sure you don’t miss an episode. And to help our guests reach more people with their inspirational stories