Staff Matters 81

Staff Matters

November 25, 2016- Issue 81 Week 21

Club Afford Visit Madame Tussauds

In this Issue Page 1 • Club Afford Visit Madame Tussauds

Page 2 • Staff Profile • Afford Get Into The Christmas Spirit • Lisa’s Creative Collage

Page 3 • Ashfield Receive A Special Visitor • A Positive Massage From Staff

Page 4 On Saturday the 19th of November a group of 32 Club Afford members from our group homes, Cherrywood Village and Lifestyle Centre’s took part in a day trip to Madame Tussauds at Darling Harbour and they absolutely loved it.

• Achieving Extraordinary Things In Vocational Training • Afford Selfies • Have A Laugh

All members enjoyed a fun day out posing next to wax sculptures of their favourite celebrities and historic icons.

The group was supported by passionate Lifestyle Assistants who went out of their way to ensure our clients had a fantastic time.

Our December calendar includes Zumba dance classes across two sites, a Christmas disco at Kings Park and trip to Magic Mania held at Sydney Olympic Park.

For any enquiries or interest in these activities contact Paul Mitchell at paul.mitchell@afford.com.au.

T 02 8805 3700 E info@afford.com.au 12 Marieanne Place, Minchinbury 2770 afford.com.au

Reminder Don’t forget to send your/clients achievements and good news stories & photo’s to CELEBRATE@afford.com.au

Staff Matters

2

November 25, 2016 - Issue 81

Staff Profile

Afford Get Into The Christmas Spirit

Deepali Shirale

Afford recently held a Christmas poster and card competition for all our clients across the organisation, with the winners being advertised in our upcoming client Christmas Party held at Penrith Panthers on the 2nd of December.

Favourite Song: Happy – by Pharrell Williams.

There were a lot of outstanding entries across our Lifestyle Centre’s, ADE’s, TTW’s and the Cherrywood Village leaving a difficult choice for the Christmas party committee to announce the winner.

Lifestyle Assistant Ashfield Lifestyle Centre

Favourite Movie: Cast Away, Home Alone.

Favourite Hobbies: Dance, Listing Music, Travelling, Preparing and eating good food.

Favourite Foods: Italian Pizza & Indian curries / savory dishes If you could be an animal what would you be: A dog.

What is your dream holiday destination: Switzerland If you had the power what would you change about the world: Selfcentered attitude What is the nicest thing someone has ever done for you: My father bought me a small puppy dog (Lucie) when I was 5 years old, which bought really happy moments in my life.

If you had to teach something what would you teach: Being happy and content with what one has in life.

Something no one knows about me: That I can put extra efforts for a person in real need.

All poster and card designs will be on display at our Christmas Party and $50 gift voucher prizes will be given to the first place winners at a later date.

A big congratulations goes to Taylah Milligan from TTW for taking home first place of the poster competition with a reindeer masterpiece and to John from Penrith for taking home first place in the card competition with a lovely crafted snowman and tree.

We would also like to acknowledge the hard work from everyone who participated in the competition well done guys!

Lisa’s Creative Collage

Kings Park Lifestyle Centre client, Lisa has reached one of her milestone goals creating a wonderful collage which has been her project to accomplish by Christmas.

Lisa wanted to capture all her favourite things and tell a story about herself all in one picture. Along this journey her best friend Lucky the dog past away. Lisa ensured she captured some magic moments with him in the lead up to his final days as well as including him in her collage.

Lisa is very proud of her work as we all are here at Afford.

a

Staff Matters

November 25, 2016 - Issue 81

Ashfield Receive A Special Visitor

Last Wednesday morning, Volunteer Debbi came over after everyone had their morning tea and brought over her puppy, Pebbles, as part of Ashfield’s pet therapy program.

The program aims to have our clients interact with animals so that they may benefit from the known soothing effect interactions such a patting and grooming, can have.

Pebbles is a beautiful 3 year old king Charles spaniel cross, and the moment she came in, she was immediately surrounded by admiring staff and clients!

Once things calmed down, Debbi proceeded to guide and support the clients as they played with Pebbles, and fed her treats.

While some were immediately taken in by Pebbles, others were a bit shay at first, however with Debbi’s support, everyone found their own way of interacting with pebbles, getting the most they could out of the encounter.

At the end of the program, clients and staff were sad to see Debbi and Pebbles leave, but were also filled excited about seeing them in the future.

A Positive Massage From Staff

Our free staff massage program is proving to be a huge success, receiving a lot of positive feedback from sites who have experienced the service.

The massage includes a specially designed massage chair, headphones with relaxing music and an optional essential oil facial spritz to revitalise after the treatment.

Staff have walked feeling relaxed and stress free ready to provide a quality service for our clients with staff stating “The massage was amazing, I feel so relaxed! Thank you for arranging such a wonderful experience for my staff and myself”.

For anyone who missed out, this service (3 hours minimum) can be booked directly with Corporate Bodies by the site managers as per staff requirements (monthly or quarterly).

3

Staff Matters

4

November 25, 2016 - Issue 81

Achieving Extraordinary Things In Vocational Training As we commence planning for Afford’s 2017 Vocational and Business Services’ accredited training program it’s timely to reflect on what we’ve achieved in 2016.

Over the past 12 months, the partnership between Afford and Nepean Community College has yielded fantastic results.

14 courses have been delivered by Eric Wright and his team to 81 individual students – both TTW and supported employees.

Collectively these people participated in 1,202 accredited “Units of Competency”.

Of those, 906 Units of Competency were successfully completed giving a very pleasing 75% successful completion rate.

At Macarthur College through the joint program, there have been a further 28 individuals participating in an average of 5 Units of Competency each, with only 4 people not successfully completing.

Overall it’s a fantastic achievement by all involved – a huge congratulations to the students and a big thank you to all of the staff at Nepean and Macarthur Community Colleges.

fl iweeek

Sef the o

In this Selfie Above: Staff members posing for the camera at last month’s Customer Service Awards.

Please send in your selfies

Have a laugh