Digital skills for your care workers is no longer a nice to have.
The stories coming out of the aged care sector in recent months are heartbreaking. The care workers, who are the vital ingredient that bring ‘care’ into aged care, are at breaking point. With the sector already facing challenges, the recent Omicron wave has created additional pressure and drawn significant attention to the challenges of the aged care sector.
This is made all the more sad because of the publicity around the Aged Care Commission and its very pointed outcomes have not been actioned. Today’s context highlights the lack of resilience in the sector to withstand, and deal with the crisis.
What is also coming into greater focus is the urgent need for digital capabilities and skills for the care workforce needed to maintain some level of continuous service for their aged care clients.
As a sector that already has high staff turnover, there has been a devastating impact on how services are delivered as providers strive to maintain some level of personal connection and human contact with their clients. According to recent numbers, nearly 1200 residential aged care homes are impacted with the outbreak. This says nothing of the effect in the home care provider context where providers have had to scale down services due to both staff shortages now amplified by isolation periods for those with Covid.
In addition to the physical health concerns related to virus infection, the impact to the mental health and wellbeing of older Australians is now in headlines as being just as important - and rightfully so.
The conversations we are having with our clients reinforces the ongoing impact of isolation continues to be devastating. This means the need for digital connection from seniors at home and for residents in aged care is a critical driver of mental and physical wellbeing. When we asked our network during the pandemic, 93% said that aged care providers could help connect seniors with digital access and skills. And 78% struggled with access to government services.
In this context, up-skilling of care workers has become a higher priority - no longer a nice to have, instead a core part of their capabilities. The digital skills of care workers is not only a valuable tool for their own lives, but a priceless one in being able to share and teach the seniors they care for. According to the Digital Nation Australia 2021 Report “40% of people are concerned that learning new digital skills during the pandemic was a challenge.” And with many older Australians understandably nervous about the virus and aged care homes in lockdowns for 6-8 weeks at a time, the need for digital solutions to help them connect to the wider world should be considered an essential service.
Every provider is asking how to build their workforce digital capabilities. The real challenge is how to deliver this in a way that responds to the current landscape - resource constraints, competing priorities and rostering challenges meaning that multiple staff can’t attend training at the same time without impacting services. It’s an interesting challenge and one that needs to be solved in the unique context of each organisation.
See how we trained 50 Sector Support care workers with digital skills
The question on our mind at YourLink is what about those care workers who are being left behind due to their lack of digital capability and lack of support in building these? How can these workers be up-skilled with the appropriate knowledge to not only benefit the way they carry out their own role but also deliver the services to maintain social connection and the wellbeing of those they care for. This has become a critical issue now, added to the ever growing list of challenges the aged care sector faces.
YourLink is committed to the digital inclusion of Australia’s seniors, carers and care workers and we will continue to strive to be part of the solution to narrow the digital divide and support the aged care sector.
