Our Annual Report Art Competition saw many entries this year from Western Sydney and Wellington High Schools.

Our winner was Lilly Nolan from Wellington High School and her painting is now the cover of our 2020 Annual Report.

Second place was awarded to Reaghan Bunn from Emu Plains Public School and 3rd was Wyatt Bush from Wellington High School.

Each winner will receive a gift card and certificate with a canvas copy of their paintings.

First Place – Lilly Nolan

Second Place - Reaghan Bunn

Third Place Wyatt Bush

Telehealth has been integral part of ACTT service delivery in 2020, allowing continuous service delivery to clients, especially during COVID-19 when our face-to-face therapy sessions were suspended.

Engaging kids in telehealth therapy has proven a challenging process for ACTT clients, as we moved from face-to-face appointments to providing services over the internet and phone. To support clients and families in therapy sessions ACTT created therapy packs. These packs are designed to be used during therapy sessions with children and their family.

During a face-to-face therapy, a therapist can entice the child to interact in a therapy session by having toys, games, and activities that they know children like. In telehealth the families support the children to engage in sessions. Packs are tailored to children’s interests in order to integrate therapy resources into sessions. For example, children can mould the ‘theraputty’ to help them identify how they are feeling, or build strength in their hands to support with hand writing and fine motor skill development. The therapist can read a book with the child or draw together. In addition, therapists have begun to use screen sharing games to support therapy goals.

Therapy Packs have have been well received by clients and their families. Parents report that children loved receiving their own parcel and all the things inside and therapists feel that the packs have helped to build rapport with the child and family during sessions.

When a block of therapy finishes, our Aboriginal Community and Therapy Support Workers prepare an “end of therapy pack”. This pack contains ideas to keep working on at home, such as sound cards, a summary of therapy goals and strategies.

ACTT Welcome to Therapy Pack

Preparing therapy packs to be sent to clients beginning therapy sessions with ACTT therapists

Congratulations – End of therapy packs

Our Quit B Fit team attended the NAIDOC Day celebrations at St Mary’s Catholic School during November and we had current NRL players Tyrell Fuimaono, Braidon Burns, Will Kennedy and Braydon Trindall present on the day to participate with the kids. They played ball games with the kids, threw boomerangs and tasted the bush tucker.

Wellington Public School were treated to a game of touch with our NRL players, Braydon Trindall, Braidon Burns, Will Kennedy and Tyrell Fuimaono. The players had a great time with the kids who certainly ran them all over the field.

WACHS has successfully maintained compliance across all clinical and community programs for Wellington – Dubbo – Mount Druitt – Penrith – Blacktown – Doonside, with all;

• National Key Performance Indicator reports accepted
• Indigenous Australian Health Program performance reports accepted for 2019-2020
• Indigenous Australian Health Program activity work plans accepted and funded for 2020-2021
• Tackling Indigenous Smoking activity work plans and activity reports accepted 2020-2021

The key areas that bring together our clinical and community programs focus on our mandate as a primary health care provider across;

• Child and maternal health
• Preventative health and
• Chronic disease management

It is through our clinics and community programs that we collect and analyse our data and feedback to ensure we are meeting our obligations to provide the health our communities need and work with and our partners in health to provided accessible, culturally responsive primary health care.

The WACHS Board has invested into its workforce to redesign, develop and create implementation tools for the 2020-2023 Strategic Plan. This significant investment reinforces WACHS’s commitment to the community-controlled health sector and Aboriginal self-determination, by demonstrating leadership in governance through community engagement, workforce development and outcome driven partnerships as a strategic commitment to improving health outcomes for the communities of whom we work.

Taking control of the 2020-2023 strategic plan process allows for;

• Organisation ownership and responsibility of the strategic direction for the next 3 years across all services, programs and locations
• Reduction of the financial and workforce burden on the organisation
• The strengthening of partnerships through input and involvement to align health priorities that have been determined by our data and community feedback

Focusing on leadership, WACHS’s aspiration for the strategic plan is also in concert with the “Closing the Gap” reforms to localize the way in which we contribute across the 16 socio-economic indicators through;

• Improving formal partnerships and decision making
• Ensuring we are integral to building the community control sector
• Providing constructive, measurable learning activities to assist in transforming government organisations and
• Creating processes for ethical and transparent data sharing

The WACHS 2020-2023 is anticipated to be released formally in February 2021.

6 months into our WACHS trainee program we are excited to share that our;

• 3 Cert IV Aboriginal Health Worker trainees are currently completing units of competency across: Infection Control, Work Health & Safety, Legal and Ethical, Aboriginal primary health care, Provide first aid. These are the first 5 of the 14 competencies of study the trainees have been focused on along with their work placement blended learning and attainment of mandatory hours in the clinic
• 1 Cert IV Bookkeeping and Accounting trainee is currently completing units of competency across: Foundations of Accounting and Bookkeeping, Preparing Ledgers and Financial Reporting, these are the first 3 of 13 modules of study combined with the workplace learning and development within the finance team

Building our workforce with local talent remains a focus of WACHS to ensure sustainable, effective leadership is driven by our youth guided buy our Elders and experienced health and business professionals.