Aged Care Financial Health Worker Pilot

When we think about the older people in our lives, friends, family members or parents, we want them to have the quality of life they deserve. And a good quality of life includes living comfortably, without any financial stress. So with a growing ageing population in Australia, and more older people wanting to remain at home, we believe a project like this is critical to help people maintain financial security.

Our staff who help older people to remain living at home through 'community care' services such as shopping, helping with meals and home nursing have identified consistent gaps in their client's financial skills and knowledge. These gaps include the management of day to day expenses, debt, savings and consumer rights. Using these findings we developed the Aged Care Financial Health Worker Project to investigate the financial difficulties experienced by older people who choose to remain at home instead of moving into an aged care residence.

The project involves assistance with financial queries and concerns for older Australians who use our community care services, such as managing bills and general finances, to more complicated tasks such as organising a Will. The assistance offered can be by phone, email or face to face. Throughout the six months of this service, we will be collecting information, findings and stories that will help formulate an evaluation report and provide recommendations to the aged care industry. The project will be operated through our three aged care offices in Mornington, Preston and Frankston and will help to answer the following questions:

This is one project that many of us at the Brotherhood are excited about, because we feel this research is needed to help continue to improve the lives of all older Australians!

For more information about our Aged Care Financial Health Worker Project, contact Frances Menendez at fmendez@bsl.org.au .