Wellbeing Support Service for Older Adults
Online resources for RACF staff and families of residents
Welcome to the Wellbeing page.
Residents, their families, staff, and their families have been greatly impacted by COVID-19. It is not uncommon for people to feel isolated, lonely, worried, anxious, depressed or just plain stressed due to restrictions and uncertainty.
The resources below are designed to support and let you know that you are also cared for while caring for the residents.
Older adults can benefit from BHN’s Wellbeing Support Service. Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs) are served by a team of psychologists and social workers who provide support to residents living in residential aged care facilities. Before COVID, we worked face-to-face with residents. Currently, it can also be accessed via phone or telehealth.
RACF staff and residents’ families can benefit from our support, but we are not able to provide direct support or counselling to them.
Here are some links and information we have compiled for you:
- Emergency numbers
- Free telehealth service for RACF staff and resident’s family members
- Free stress reduction and relaxation apps
- Free relaxation music to help with sleeping and relaxing
- Beyond Blue information for emotional support
- Beyond Blue information on anxiety, depression and suicide
- Information for older people and their mental health
- Wellbeing Program referral form
- Wellbeing Support Services brochure
Here are some resources to help you take care of your mental health.
Emergency numbers
Where to find help –
| Police, Fire, Ambulance | 000 | Emergency assistance |
| Life Line | 13 11 14 | Crisis support, suicide prevention and mental health support services |
| Suicide Callback Line | 1300 659 467 | People affected by suicide |
| Suicide Helpline | 1300 651 251 | SuicideLine Victoria is a free 24/7 telephone, video and online counselling service for people at risk of suicide, people concerned about someone else’s risk of suicide and people bereaved by suicide. |
| 1800 RESPECT | 1800 737 732 | Open 24/7 for Family Violence support & advice plus information on how to access a counsellor in your local area. |
| Safe Steps | 1800 015 188 | Open 24/7 for Family Violence support & advice plus information on how to access a counsellor in your local area. |
| Grief Line | 1300 845 745 | Support for people who are experiencing loss and grief, Lines open from midday to 3am 7 days |
| Beyond Blue | 1300 22 4636 | Information and support if you are not coping well or feeling overwhelmed. |
| Direct Line | 1800 888 236 | People impacted by drug use and wanting to discuss this with someone |
| Beyond Blue - Coronavirus Mental Wellbeing | 1800 512 348 | Click here to visit website |
| National Debt Helpline | 1800 007 007 | Free Financial counselling Click here to visit website |
| Seniors Rights Victoria | 1800 368 821 | A confidential service providing advice, information and support to older people experiencing elder abuse. For elder abuse information in other languages click the link below. Click here to visit website |
Free Counselling for you via Telehealth
National Telehealth Counselling Service for Aged Care
A free telehealth service is being offered by the Swinburne Wellbeing Clinic for Older Adults to provide emotional support to residents and staff working in residential aged care homes and resident’s families via phone or video calls.
Counsellors are available to provide emotional support and to assist addressing problems, worries, or stresses.
Counsellors can be in contact regularly to provide support over the next few months.
Private & Confidential
You do not need a referral from a GP or health care professional to access this service.
Referrals and appointments are made online using the online referral form click here.
For frequently asked questions click here.
Swinburne National Telehealth Counselling Service
Click here to visit website
For easy English resources for community members explaining the use of Telehealth please click here.
Your Wellbeing
Sometimes we can get a bit stuck for ideas. What could we do to help with our own wellbeing every day?
8 ways to look after yourself during COVID –
Maintain routines where possible
Connect with family and friends (even if not in person)
Stay physically active
Eat healthy foods
Consider limiting time on social media
Limit exposure to media coverage
Show compassion and kindness to one another
Seek additional support from your GP or other professionals listed in the emergency service contacts
5 Ways to Wellbeing
The Royal Melbourne Hospital have put together a resource called 5 ways to Wellbeing. They have lots of good ideas if you’re not sure what you could be doing.
Connect, Be Active, Keep Learning, Be Aware and Help Others
Visit website
Head to Health
Head to Health can help you find the right digital mental health resources to support you through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Visit website
Taking care of yourself in isolation
enliven has created a number of easy English resources to help people get through the COVID pandemic.
Their resource called Taking care of yourself in isolation covers ways for older people to look after their health and wellbeing during isolation.
Click on the pictures below to find out more:
Taking care of yourself in isolation
(older people)
Updated 3 August 2020
Taking care of yourself in isolation
(people with a disability and carers)
Updated 3 August 2020
Free Relaxation and Stress Reduction Apps
The internet and digital technologies can be great but sometimes we don’t know where to start.
To help, we’ve put together a list of some of the most popular ones.
You can use them on a tablet or smart phone.
Click on the link to go to the app store.
Colourfy
Colouring in is a great way to relax; it promotes mindfulness and helps you to focus your mind on something. This app is full of images such as florals, animals, cats, nature, famous paintings, and mandalas to colour in.
Relaxing Sounds
Daily living can make people feel stressed and anxious, so it’s important to relax. This app contains a wide variety of soothing nature recordings designed to create a calming and relaxing environment for the listener. Sounds include forest and campfire, sea, river and waterfall, bird and other animal sounds.
Headspace: Guided Meditation
Want to learn the essentials of meditation and mindfulness? The Headspace app can help when things get too overwhelming. This app guides the user through a series of short meditations. It is initially free to download, but users will be required to pay to unlock additional material.
Soothing Sleep Sounds
Staff working long hours in aged care facilities can sometimes lose track of what time of day or night it is, and this can impact their sleep cycle and could lead to insomnia. An app like Soothing Sleep Sounds is designed to offer just that – sounds that will soothe you to sleep.
Treat
This app was developed by the Alfred Hospital for their medical staff. It’s a simple app to help reduce stress and the pressures of daily living. It has more than 30 different guided meditations. The app is designed to give you the opportunity to unwind and manage stress levels. Great for children aged 8 upwards.
Other free apps and webpages:
Smiling Mind
Smiling mind now has added options especially for kids.
Breath2Relax app
MoodTools app
Stop, Breath, & Think app
Free Relaxation Music
When we did a search of the “best sleep music” we came up with these options from YouTube. YouTube has lots of free relaxation music. Here are three to get you started.
Click on the blue links below. Then lie back and listen to the music and drift off to sleep or just relax in a quiet space.
Please do not play these if you are driving.
Find information on relaxation exercises – breathing exercises, muscle relaxation & guided meditation from Beyond Blue by clicking the link below.
Click here
Mental Health Information and Support
Phone: 1300 22 4636
Website: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/
Beyond Blue provides information and support to help everyone in Australia achieve their best possible mental health, whatever their age and wherever they live.
3 million Australians are living with anxiety or depression.
Get immediate support.
All calls and chats are one-on-one with a trained mental health professional, and completely confidential. They may ask for your first name and some general details, you can let them know if you’d like to remain anonymous.
We all have good days and bad days. Then there are those days when something isn’t quite right, you’ve got something on your mind, or things just seem too much. Whatever it may be, sharing the load with someone else can really help. So, no matter who you are, or how you’re feeling, you can talk it through with Beyond Blue– they’ll point you in the right direction, so you can seek further support.
Last year people in Australia accessed our service more than 192,000 times to discuss their concerns – both big and small – and you can too.
Find information on relaxation exercises – breathing exercises, muscle relaxation & guided meditation from Beyond Blue here
Interpreters at Beyond Blue
Click on the links below if you want to book an interpreter to talk to someone at Beyond Blue.
Beyond Blue also have up-to-date information on mental health –
Click on the links below to get more information
Older people and mental health
Depression is common throughout the Australian population, and older people are more likely to experience contributing factors such as physical illness or personal loss.
It is thought that between 10 and 15 per cent of older people experience depression and about 10 per cent experience anxiety.1 Rates of depression among people living in residential aged-care are believed to be much higher, at around 35 per cent.2
Unfortunately, many people over 65 still seem to feel there is a stigma attached to depression and anxiety, viewing them as weaknesses or character flaws rather than a genuine health condition.
Older people are also more hesitant to share their experiences of anxiety and depression with others, often ignoring symptoms over long periods of time and only seeking professional help when things reach a crisis point.
The good news is help is available, effective treatments exist for older people and with the right treatment most older people recover.
Click on the links below to find out more…
- Depression in older people
- Signs and symptoms of anxiety and depression in older people & dementia and depression
- How to have a conversation with older people about mental health
For some older people, talking about personal matters might not come easily.
They may have never really talked about how they feel; it wasn’t the thing to do when they were growing up.
Others worry about what will happen as a result of sharing their experiences; they do not want to be seen as a burden and they don’t want to be treated differently.
Some also worry that asking for help might be seen as a weakness.
But the community and its understanding of mental health issues has come a long way in the time that they have been alive & we hope that the community’s knowledge and understanding of mental health continues to grow.
Elder Abuse – What you need to know
A resident’s mental health may also be significantly impacted if they are experiencing elder abuse.
Information from the 2015 report Elder abuse: Understanding issues, frameworks and responses by the Australian Institute of Family Studies says that:
- Is likely that between 2% and 14% of older Australians experience elder abuse in any given year
- That most elder abuse is by family members
- Financial abuse appears to be the most common form of abuse experienced by elderly people.
Click here to learn more about what Elder abuse is and how to you can support residents who may have experienced elder abuse.
Better Place’s Elder Abuse Prevention Services provide
– training for residential staff
– support for elderly people who maybe at risk of elder abuse
– trained mediators who can work with elderly people and their families.
Wellbeing Support Program for RACF Residents
The Wellbeing Program provides supportive counselling for residents in your RACF. Have a chat with your Wellbeing Worker onsite or by phone.
Alternatively, you can fill out a Wellbeing Referral and fax it to the number on the form or contact one of our Triage Clinicians on: 9684 4281.
Wellbeing Support Services Brochure
Wellbeing Program Referral Form
Grace, Sue, Karen, Chris, Chris, Dona, Julie, Deidre & Michelle would be only too happy to talk to you about how the program could help the residents of your RACF.
Look for the Wellbeing posters – coming soon.
In what is a very complex time for many people, we hope the information provided will be helpful to you. Please e-mail wellbeing@starhealth.org.au with any suggestions or comments you may have about the page.
The BHN Wellbeing Program wishes you and your family all the best.
Be kind and take care of yourself,
The Wellbeing Team at Wellbeing Support Services for Older Adults
BHN
Thank-you to the residential staff
All of the volunteers, laundry staff, kitchen staff, cleaning staff, personal care workers, nurses, reception staff, managers, maintenance staff, lifestyle workers, hairdressers, and everyone else who works onsite at the Wellbeing Program would like to say a heartfelt ‘thank you’.
You put in extra effort. We see it.
You take extra care with residents, and we see that.
We appreciate the extra effort you put into making residents feel at home.
It’s not because of the thank you that you do this, but because of the care you have for others.
