‘Walk in Their Shoes’: Reflections from Medecs Learning & Enriched Care Solutions
“Learning to stand in somebody else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, that’s how peace begins. And it’s up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.” (Barak Obama | Former President of the United States of America)
Medecs Learning has long been a provider of quality training for the team here at Enriched Care Solutions. Our team of disability support workers, care coordinators and office staff regularly take their courses to receive nationally recognised accreditation. Both the team at Medecs and Enriched Care understand that to truly be an excellent care provider, continuous education and training is non-negotiable. We love to offer our team here a multitude of avenues to further their education, skills and certifications in the disability support sector.
“Medecs Learning is the premier provider of training programs in the Healthcare and Social Assistance sector in Tasmania. Our highly experienced team of dedicated professional instructors deliver nationally endorsed courses… As a registered NDIS provider …we also provide complex care (HIDA) education, training, and clinical consultation services for NDIS participants including the development and updating of individualised care plans.” (About Us | Medecs Learning Website)
In mid-2022, Deb Stone, the Managing Director of Medecs Learning, floated an idea for instructors to experience a day in the life of a Disability Support Worker as part of their ongoing professional development program. What started as an RTO compliance initiative, has grown into a positive experience for both Medecs instructors and disability organisations across the state, including Enriched Care!
Deb explains the purpose of the initiative;
"...as part of the ongoing professional development for our instructors, we have commenced a program called “Walk in Their Shoes”. Coming from varying backgrounds, mostly acute care and aged care, the opportunity to immerse themselves in the disability sector and "walk in the shoes" of a support worker was thought to be invaluable to their understanding of the sector and complement their training of students from the sector. It is anticipated that each team member will undertake this experience twice a year. Our partner organisations have been extremely positive in support of this initiative and have been very generous in hosting or agreeing to host our instructors. We can see this initiative continuing to build and strengthen relationships with our partner organisations.”
Karen MacLaren from Medecs Learning recently spent the day with one of the Enriched Care participants as part of the 'Walk in Their Shoes' initiative. She sent through a wonderful reflection of her time with an Enriched Care participant, writing the following;
“I had the privilege of going to a group home organised by Enriched Care for a day. I initially was unenthusiastic when I realized there was only one participant in the group home and one support worker but once I understood the history of the participant and their love for music, we had common ground which set up a fun day of me singing... a song the participant had written then singing along to the music clips that were on his television.
I also respected the one support worker who multi-tasked throughout the day from showering, to feeding the participant a meal which he’d prepared, to eventually using the hoist once a second support worker arrived to transfer the participant into their wheelchair (to which I jokingly reported that I could’ve signed them off for their annual manual handling session).
I think it highlighted the training we do, the respect our support workers deserve and... the difference they can make to their participant.”
Deb Stone added her own words saying "Thank you so much for supporting us in this project. It's been valuable for both organisations". We here at Enriched Care want to return our own thanks and gratitude to Medecs for their outstanding provision of excellent training to our team.
We also wanted to recognise Mitchell Pulford, who was the Support Worker on shift when Karen came to observe. Thanks, Mitchell, for representing Enriched value 'Build Connections' so well and for your outstanding work with our participants!