Management

We provide a whole-of-home approach so that care home management can fulfil their legal obligations as well as skilling their staff and providing information, products and services to residents.

How we can help

We help care home management by:

• Reviewing their services against the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency criteria and evidence-based, best practice aged care research
• Create policies and procedures to meet accreditation, inclusivity and human rights criteria
• Provide training for care and recreational staff
• Provide sexuality and sexual health seminars for residents
• Source and provide sexual aids and services that have met our quality standards for aged care
• Provide consultation and assistance in care planning for individual residents

Case study

By all accounts Henry and Donna were a loving couple who had married late in life and who both had adult children.  Several years after their marriage Donna was diagnosed with dementia and moved to a residential aged care facility.  Henry and Donna continued their relationship, but Donna’s daughter was concerned about her mother’s ability to consent to sexual relations and consulted with the social worker.  The social worker consulted with the GP and both agreed that Donna did not have capacity.  Henry was informed but did not agree and after circumstantial evidence, he was charged with sexual abuse.

Henry was ultimately acquitted, but in the process Donna had been moved to a new facility and passed away.  Henry, the family and staff were all subjected to an interrogation and the stress of a court case even though the facility had a policy supporting sexual relations.  A review of the case found that professional staff education on sexuality and a capacity assessment would have greatly benefited Henry, Donna and the staff who cared for them. [Beauregard, J. 2015]

The research behind us:

Bauer, M, Fetherstonhaugh, D.; Nay, R., Tarzia, L. & Beattie, E (2013). Sexuality Assessment Tool (SexAT) for residential aged care facilities.
Beauregard, J., (2015). Sexuality, Dementia, and Catholic Long-Term Health Care.

YOUELL, J., CALLAGHAN, J., & BUCHANAN, K. (2016). ‘I don’t know if you want to know this’: Carers’ understandings of intimacy in long-term relationships when one partner has dementia. Ageing and Society, 36(5), 946-967. doi:10.1017/S0144686X15000045