Keeping Active with NDIS Support

Brian has been a valued resident of the Gill Waminda Aged Care Centre in Goulburn for over five years. When he is not at the Centre, Brian can be found keeping busy, out and about, with his two NDIS support workers. “We love going up to the hydrotherapy pool, the heated pool in Goulburn” Brian says. “We spend a couple of hours there once a week, depending on the weather.”  

Brian also loves keeping active and exploring the sites, such as the zoo and, more recently, the Goulburn Show. Another day out has included a drive to Crookwell, about half an hour away, to visit where Brian used to play football. One of the more poignant activities Brian and Stephanie, one of his support workers, have done together is visit the cemetery, to visit the gravestones of Brian’s relatives who have since passed.  

“I love going to the cemetery, because I’ve got Mum and Dad and a lot of relations there,” tells Brian. “It’s not an everyday thing but Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and their birthdays that would have been,” Brian notes of their site visits.  

A more recent project Stephanie is helping Brian with is finding frames for his parent’s gravestones. “We’re just in the middle of getting some pictures of his parents and putting them into water-proof heavy frames so that we can place them at the grave sites, and we’ve been figuring out some kind of waterproofing that can stay there with their photos,” she says. 

Stephanie has been a support worker for just over three years and when asked what makes for a good support worker, she explains that it’s about the importance of person-centred care. “You have got to keep the resident in mind and realise that they’re all different, so keeping diverse activities in mind for them too,” she notes. 

She also reiterates the rewarding nature of her role. “I love that we can do something that’s so small for us but the reward for the residents is so big. The tiniest thing that we do, really can still make a massive difference in their everyday. It makes me realise that we’re actually impacting people,” she says. When asked what he enjoys most about his time with Stephanie, Brian notes, “for the simple reason, I get to do what’s beneficial for me.”