2021 sees the return of face-to-face aged care forums

The March breakfast forum at Victoria Park was a welcome opportunity for the sector to meet in person once again. It was the first time since the pandemic began that we were able to gather at a venue to share conversations and network with colleagues. COVID-safe measures were in place and the opportunity was enjoyed by all.

These popular forums are held four times a year and hosted for the aged care sector by the healthy@home consortium. Three of our forums are breakfast events and in September our annual forum is a full day affair.

Our regular presentation topics at all forums include LASA State Manager, Chris Edith, regularly provides informative sector updates at the forums and we always seek to have a guest consumer speaker on the agenda. We are very grateful that they generously agree to share their life experiences.

Forum attendees gain up-to-date knowledge on a variety of contemporary topics. Our 17 March breakfast forum at Victoria Park attracted 76 attendees. Event speakers addressed a wide variety of topics, from ‘the lived experience of Elder abuse’, to the benefits and joy that intergenerational play can provide to both the young and older people in our community.

More recently, the June face-to-face breakfast forum at Eatons Hill Hotel had a digital focus. A highlight was a presentation by our consumer speaker who shared her experience with a successful Aurous program that maintains social connections via an iPad tablet. She revealed just how valuable this support was to maintaining her health and wellbeing at home. The key message from Aurous was to ‘keep it simple’, older people can do this.

Our consumer speaker also discussed some of the technological changes she had seen in her lifetime. She recalled having to use a backyard toilet with a septic tank, and then moving to sewerage. A copper boiler was also used for hot water, whereas now we have an instant hot water system. And once there were no fans in homes, but now we enjoy remote control air conditioning. She explained that older people are accustomed to technological advances, so iPad communication was just another to embrace.

Upcoming forum dates 2021: 9 September at Victoria Park and 17 November at Caboolture Hub.

To find out more about upcoming forums or to subscribe to our newsletter, email chsp@brisbanenorthphn.org.au.