CareSouth employs 301 staff across the Illawarra, Western, Southern and Shoalhaven regions of NSW and Deakin in the ACT.

CareSouth’s vision is to create a positive future for those with whom we work and we recognise that our staff are key to achieving this.

Staff training and retention is a key aspect of building capacity and best practice. In the past financial year the HR Department’s major focus has been on implementing a robust Learning and Development strategy through our ELMO e-learning system. This allows staff to complete online training modules in our push to ensure all staff have the necessary skill set to meet our benchmarks for best practice. CareSouth aims to be a leader in our sector and as such we have offered staff 63 training courses this financial year with 4182 staff enrolled in these. Of these courses 39 are mandatory training. We currently have a 76% completion of training rate and the Board has set a target for 100% staff completion. In June CareSouth released our Safeguarding Children Policy and Acknowledgement with 91% of staff completing the online acknowledgement, 95% of staff completing our Mandatory Reporting training and 89% of staff completing our Code of Conduct acknowledgment.

Everyday Emerging Leaders Program

Last year CareSouth launched its inaugural Emerging Leaders program to identify and develop future leadership talent.  The 12-month work-based learning program supported seven staff from across the organisation considering a career in management and leadership.

Those who took part in the year-long learning and development journey were:

• Tayla Arneman from Berkeley’s Human Resources team
• Codie Harrington from Deniliquin’s Foster Care team
• Stefanie King, Executive Assistant to the CEO
• Lisa Chorlton, Nowra’s Drop-In Support Program Team Leader
• Kate Van Seumeren from Berkeley’s Out-of-Home Care team
• Jennifer Toms from the Shoalhaven Youth Support Service team
• Kristine Williams from the Nowra Disabilities team

The group worked together to develop an employment strategy to provide job opportunities to vulnerable people in a bid to develop meaningful occupational skills and support independence. At the end of the 12-month program, staff received a Certificate IV in Leadership Management, provided employment for one person and developed meaningful occupational training for four others.

“One of the most important things we learned from this was that the process of applying for and being inducted into employment contributes to occupational skills and independence,” said Tayla.

The program helped the group to better develop their skill set, set concrete, achievable goals, improve their confidence and capabilities in their roles and increase their knowledge of CareSouth, outside of their individual programs.

The knowledge they gained included insights into their personality type and subsequent communication style, how to prioritise, transformational leadership skills and recognising that conflict is an opportunity for communication and growth. The group also learned how to effectively support team members through periods of change and how to motivate peers.

“I developed more confidence and self-awareness, in terms of understanding how I like to be communicated with, how I can come across to others, being aware of my faults and working to improve them,” said Tayla. “I became more confident in my ability to achieve goals and in being able to put my hand up for new opportunities even if they are challenging and scary.”

The group was also asked to set five win-win goals as part of their course work.

“By creating these goals I was able to see myself as an integral part of the HR team because I was able to set goals that helped the team. It also gave me an opportunity to research new areas that I was interested in and get motivated to pursue them,” said Tayla.

Lisa Chorlton, Team Leader of Nowra’s Drop-In Support Program, said taking part in Emerging Leaders helped her set goals and contribute to achieving CareSouth’s key success factors.

“It was a great opportunity to work and learn with such a friendly and dedicated group of people,” said Lisa.

Kristine Williams, an integral member of Nowra’s Disability Support team, almost didn’t apply to join the Emerging Leaders program, but the experience has been career-changing. It has improved her confidence in her ability to work across programs and helped her gain a better understanding of the work CareSouth does as a whole.

“The biggest challenge for me was applying initially when Emerging Leaders first started,” said Kristine. “Since then I have been faced with many more challenges and I have overcome them all. I have worked through a secondment in policy, something I would not have applied for prior to Emerging Leaders. But the knowledge and confidence I gained through completing this course has me actively looking for new challenges and goals to meet.”

The mutually beneficial program gave staff the opportunity to enhance their leadership skills while helping CareSouth to identify and develop potential talent across the organisation, thereby engaging and retaining highly skilled employees.

“A key goal within CareSouth is to build leadership skills at all levels of the organisation,” said CEO Deb Tozer. “The Emerging Leaders program has certainly progressed this goal and generated great interest and enthusiasm for the continuation of the program and future involvement of staff.

“I am incredibly proud of the individual and collective achievements of Jen, Lisa, Tayla, Codie, Stefanie, Kate, and Kristine, and early observations suggest the program had a profound impact on their performance.”

Where are they now?

• Tayla has received a promotion within CareSouth’s Human Resources Department
• Codie is on maternity leave
• Stefanie has implemented a range of efficiencies for the CEO and is a key member of CareSouth’s tendering process
• Lisa has been a key driver in supporting the roll-out of NDIS at CareSouth
• Kate is on a 12-month secondment to the Department of Family and Community Services
• Jennifer was appointed as a part-time Safeguarding Officer to establish CareSouth’s Safeguarding Children Policy, while remaining an integral part of the SYSS team
• Kristine has been instrumental in supporting clients who are navigating the new NDIS scheme.

Work, Health and Safety

Over the past financial year, with support from CareSouth’s Board and the Executive Leadership Group, our Work, Health and Safety (WHS) team has introduced a safety management system and rejuvenated an internal return to work system and recovery at work process.

This involved strengthening external relationships with CareSouth’s Rehabilitation Provider and Insurance Company as well as introducing a WHS team with a qualified advanced return to work coordinator and two return to work coordinators to manage Workers Compensation claims and the rehabilitation process internally. Prior to establishing a WHS team all of CareSouth’s Workers Compensation claims were managed by an external rehabilitation provider. Having an internal team allowed the organisation to significantly reduce the amount of time lost due to injury. In the past some Workers Compensation claims were complex in nature and the process in finalising claims was lengthy. This proved frustrating for staff and had a severe impact on their health and recovery and, in some cases, resulted in long-term incapacity for work or permanent disability.

Our Work Health and Safety Team have worked tirelessly over the past 12 months to introduce a new return to work program that ensures our employees who are injured at work receive the psychological support they need upfront. This involved introducing a new Employee Assistance Program and reshaping the Workers Compensation rehabilitation process that places psychological health at the forefront of our employees’ recovery at work. Building positive staff relationships, transparency and trust was also a major focus for the return to work coordinators. This has not only had a positive impact on injured staff’s morale but it has also reduced the severity of long-term injury or illness sustained by staff and encouraged and supported staff to return to work in record time after the incident occurs.

The WHS team has also implemented an online Incident Reporting system. This enables the WHS team to report on incident trends and hazards, thereby allowing the team to take a strategic approach to safety by identifying and addressing the highest risks throughout the organisation.

As a result, a snapshot of incident statistics at one of our residential care homes showed that work-related incidents and Workers Compensation claims have been slowly trending downwards since July 2016 when the residential care team, clinical team and WHS team began working collaboratively to put supports in place for staff before and after incidents occurred.