strategic plan - palliative care victoria

Strategic Plan 2018–2022

Palliative Care Victoria

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Palliative Care Victoria is the peak body for palliative care and end of life care. Established in 1981, we are an incorporated association and charity supported by the Victorian Government, organisation and individual members, other groups and funders. A founding and current member of Palliative Care Australia, we also contribute to national policies and initiatives in collaboration with the state and territory palliative care peak bodies.


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Strategic Plan 2018-2022

All people with a life limiting illness and their families are supported to live, die and grieve well.

To advance our vision through empowering leadership, capacity building, and advocacy.

Our Vision

Our Mission


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RespectWe respect the value, dignity, and human rights of people with a life limiting illness and their families.

EmpowermentWe empower people to prepare for dying, grief and loss, and to be supportive and resilient.

Integrity We are truthful and ethical in all that we say and do.

Compassion We foster compassionate communities and the quality of life of people with a life limiting illness and their families.

Our Values

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This strategic plan outlines our key objectives and activities for 2018 to 2022. It has been informed by our 2017 community awareness survey, issues raised by people with a life limiting illness and their carers, engagement with our members and partners, and policy directions (including Victoria’s end of life and palliative care framework). Everyone has an important role in achieving our vision. This plan reflects our intention to complement the contributions of others. We have chosen to focus on specific areas where we can lead and collaborate to add value and have maximum impact. This approach is more sustainable given our size and resources.

The Next Four Years

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Although the incidence of life limiting illness and death is increasing due to our ageing population and increasing chronic disease, our communities and our health and care services are not yet well prepared for this inevitable part of life and human experience. We need to:

- Address fears of dying and lack of preparation for this stage of life.

- Improve community understanding of palliative care and the natural dying process.

- Meet current and growing needs for palliative care, with equitable and timely access to well-coordinated, person-centred services.

- Improve choice on the place of care and death and support for carers.

- Equip healthcare professionals to provide palliative care and integrate palliative care into all relevant health and care services.

- Ensure specialist palliative care expertise is available to care for people with complex needs and to build palliative care capacity in all healthcare services.

Strategic Challenges


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1. Empowered consumers, carers and compassionate communities.

2. Specialist palliative care benefits individuals and health services.

3. Diversity-inclusive and diversity-responsive palliative care.

4. Expanded, innovative and valued volunteering contributions.

Our Objectives

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Fear, isolation and silence are common experiences of people when facing life limiting illness, caring, grief and loss. We need to provide opportunities for people to address their fears, to prepare for these inevitable life experiences, to know what to say and do, and how to be supportive of one another when it matters most.

Objective 1.

Empowered consumers, carers and compassionate communities


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We will facilitate empowered consumers, carers and compassionate communities through:

- Community awareness campaigns and participation in

community events.

- Community capacity building activities – such as supporting people with a life limiting illness and their caregivers, discussing what matters most when death is expected, and supporting people facing grief and loss.

- Collaboration with community groups, particularly

those with strong networks that will increase our reach and impact.

- Training staff and volunteers to deliver these capacity

building activities through their networks.

Priority Focus

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Victoria’s end of life and palliative care framework aims to strengthen the specialist palliative care sector and to use its specialist workforce more effectively. This sector plays an important role in caring for people with complex needs, enabling all healthcare staff to deliver the benefits of palliative care, and realising the framework’s goal of coordinated and integrated person-centred healthcare.

Objective 2.

Specialist palliative care benefits individuals and health services


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As other participants in the specialist palliative care sector have leading roles and expertise in relation to professional education, service delivery, quality improvement and research, our contributions will focus on:

- Advocacy to support a strong, vibrant and innovative

specialist palliative care sector in Victoria. We will also work with Palliative Care Australia to inform national policies and programs.

- Responding to numerous public requests for assistance

in accessing palliative care services.

- Facilitating linkages and forums to improve timely, coordinated and integrated access to palliative care for under-served populations; we will give priority to chronic diseases that are leading causes of death.

- Providing palliative care resources for healthcare providers to use with consumers and carers.

- Providing opportunities for specialist palliative care and other healthcare services to contribute to our other strategic objectives - such as our community engagement, capacity building and innovation activities.

- Providing information updates, networking opportunities, and support to our members.

Priority Focus

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The evolving diversity of Victoria’s growing population includes aboriginality, ethnicity, culture, language, sexuality and gender identity, special needs, relative disadvantage and geographic location. This diversity requires healthcare services to embed systematic and sustained strategies for inclusive and responsive palliative care by: understanding diversity, removing barriers to access, workforce capacity building, and empowering and inclusive approaches in the design and delivery of services. Collaboration and capacity building is also needed to facilitate access by diverse groups to inclusive and responsive palliative care.

Objective 3.

Diversity-inclusive and diversity-responsive palliative care


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We will contribute to diversity-inclusive and diversity-responsive palliative care by:

- Collaborating with the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria and ethnic community organisations to prioritise, co-design and implement strategies to improve access to inclusive and responsive palliative care.

- Contributing to activities by the Victorian Aboriginal

Community Controlled Health Organisation to improve access to inclusive and responsive palliative care.

- Assisting with relevant capacity building activities by healthcare services to provide inclusive and responsive palliative care.

Priority Focus

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Volunteers are compassionate communities in action. They facilitate community engagement and capacity building and improve the quality of life of people with life limiting illnesses and their families. We need to expand, diversify and strengthen these volunteer contributions in all communities, healthcare services and care settings.

Objective 4.

Expanded, innovative and valued volunteering contributions


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Our activities to expand, diversify and strengthen volunteering will include:

- Providing professional development for managers of volunteers and train the trainer strategies.

- Community engagement and capacity building.

- Collaborating with relevant volunteer-involving networks and services.

- Promoting the value of volunteering and its impact.

- Advocacy for increased support to expand volunteering.

- Facilitating and promoting innovative volunteering.

- Training and supporting Palliative Care Victoria volunteer ambassadors.

Priority Focus

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We will collaborate, build capacity and advocate to provide empowering leadership that advances our vision and strategic objectives.

Collaborate

We will collaborate with Palliative Care Australia and a diverse range of people, communities and organisations across Victoria to facilitate our vision and strategic objectives, including:

- Relevant peak bodies representing consumers, carers, volunteers, Aboriginal communities, ethnic communities, rural and regional communities.

- Community groups and networks, such as: ethnic community

organisations, neighbourhood houses, seniors groups, community services and support groups.

- Health and care sector, including: the specialist palliative care sector, chronic disease groups, Primary Health Networks, aged care and disability services.

- Funders and policy makers, including: Department of Health and Human Services, Municipal Association of Victoria, philanthropic trusts.

Our Approach


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Build Capacity

Capacity building empowers others and increases the impact of our work.

We propose to:

- Develop and deliver co-designed capacity building training programs and resources. We will use a train the trainer approach, where possible, as this creates ownership by other groups to replicate the capacity building work via their networks.

- Invite expressions of interest for collaborative innovations relevant to our strategic objectives, supported by seed funding and innovation capacity building workshops.

We will prioritise and stage our capacity building activities as resources allow.


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AdvocateWe will undertake advocacy work to advance our vision and strategic objectives.

This will involve:

- Engaging effectively and creatively with consumers, carers, our members, decision makers, and other key stakeholders to ensure diverse voices and experiences inform our advocacy.

- Making compelling, evidence-based representations to government

and other relevant decision makers to gain their support for actions to advance our vision and strategic objectives.

- Demonstrating the quality of life and economic benefits of palliative care, supported by personal stories.

- Gaining the support and influence of others for our cause - such as media, superannuation funds, health insurers, high profile ambassadors, etc.

Our Approach


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Level 2, 182 Victoria ParadeEast Melbourne VIC 3002T (03) 9662 9644F (03) 9662 9722E [email protected] www.pallcarevic.asn.au F www.facebook.com/PalliativeCareVictoriaTwitter @pallcarevic

Reg. Incorp. No A0022429MABN 88 819 011 622

strategic plan - palliative care victoria

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