Aim
Being aware of the challenges faced by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, as a team our aim was to continue to deliver same or equivalent supports to community during the COVID-19 pandemic. We understood that community would draw hope and strength from our consistency and each team member demonstrated compassion and understanding, asked what the community needed and worked to support other team members and families throughout this pandemic.
Outcomes
Saving on travel time through adoption of new communication methods such as Microsoft Teams, is still used widely. Community group meetings, such as National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) and Sunshine Coast Indigenous Network group have also continued to use these connection avenues.
We focussed on remaining available to support community, implementing a flu vaccination clinic in a pandemic environment, conducting follow up phone calls from fever clinic presentations and adapting to life with COVID-19 hotspots and re-emerging from isolation as quickly as possible.
Background
With consideration given to the challenges faced by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait community, Sunshine Coast HHS realised they had to respond quickly and decisively in this uncertain time. Community challenges included: less gatherings, cancelled events, family and social isolation, mental health decline, financial pressures and accommodation issues. In the working environment challenges included: new ways of communicating, social distancing and additional workload pressures. Our working and community relationships were certainly impacted and our story shares how our teams engagement with community members, learnt new ways of communicating and adapted to additional workloads.
