Enriching Lifestyles initiative committed to supporting people with a disability

The Enriching Lifestyles initiative has two major components: first, the development of the core philosophy of placing the person at the centre of all aspects of service delivery and second, staff being aligned with and trained in person centred approaches and disability support practices.

Villa Maria is committed to personalised planning and approaches for each person, and in doing so, has developed a suite of tools that can be used by staff. The choice of approach will be based on the skills, desires, and communication methods of each person who receives our services. This will result in a positive personal profile that identifies the activities, abilities and preferences of the person over all of the areas of life activity. We have a group of dedicated, trained staff who are known as the ‘Champions' to help achieve this.

Social networks are an important source of natural, informal supports for all people and are crucial to personal and work adjustment and contribute to quality of life. Enriching Lifestyles reinforces and encourages the involvement of natural sources of support such as families, friends, and members of the client's community. Involvement of these participants will also ensure that a broad range of opinions and possibilities are included and that sources of natural support are engaged in the process as early as possible.

The Circle Network, established in April 2008, is a group of people who receive our services who meet monthly to talk about things that are important to the people who use Villa Maria's services.

It is our vision to change from being dominant in the person's life to acting in a partnership relationship with individuals, families and other sources of natural support.

In everyday application, these skills and tools will help keep in the forefront what is important to the person while supporting people with disabilities to be healthy, safe and living more of the kind of life they want.

The Enriching Lifestyles initiative adopts a format that demonstrates our innovation and creativity in realising and implementing the directions in the Victorian State Disability Plan and ensuring our compliance with the Disability Act 2006.
 

Further Information

Contact the Enriching Lifestyles Coordinator on T : (03) 9855 7615