WA LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD of aged care receives PASSIONATE ADVOCATE

Awarded a lifetime achievement for her work in the aged care sector, Jennifer Grieve, Hall & Prior’s former General Manager of Health & Care Services, reflects on a 50year career which changed a nation’s approach to caring for the elderly.

By Gabi Mills.

Last month, former Hall & Prior General Manager of Health & Care Services, Jennifer Grieve, received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2022 WA Nursing and Midwifery Excellence Awards.

It recognised her lifelong contribution to aged care and was the first time the prestigious honour had been awarded to somebody representing the aged care sector. On International Women’s Day, it is fitting to hear from one of Australia’s leading female aged care innovators who aspires always to find pathways for the next generation of nurses who may wish to pursue a career in health and aged care.

For Jen herself - who claims it’s the first award she’s received since being given a pencil in Year 2 - it’s a wonderful award for which she is truly grateful, not just for herself but for the many colleagues with whom she has worked beside throughout a nursing career in gerontological nursing.

Jen has always been a true champion of the nursing profession, a pioneer of gerontological nursing in WA and an aged care visionary, responsible for groundbreaking innovations in the aged care sector which have become the national gold standard in the field of home care, dementia care and falls prevention.

Hall & Prior already knew all of that, but on February 25, the rest of the WA nursing community was made aware of her special qualities too.

At a glittering ceremony for the WA Nursing and Midwifery Excellence Awards at the Crown Ballroom in Perth, Jen was given the Lifetime Achievement Award. The honour was shared with nurse Kathleen McCoy, who received the award posthumously.

Reflecting on the achievement, Jen admitted she still couldn’t conceal her delight that, at long last, aged care had been recognised in such a way.

“For so long, gerontological nursing has been the Cinderella or a poor cousin in the sector, and it’s marvellous to see it coming into this focus,” she said.

“I always say that somehow I took the right road in 1976 and I am so happy to be the recipient of this award - happy for my family, for the Hall & Prior family, and above all, happy for the aged care sector. I reflect on other previous nurse recipients of this award and feel very humble and honoured to be in their company.”

She said that health and aged care had given her so much, not just in a lifetime’s career, but on a personal level too.

Proud Recipient Of Top Award

“My husband says he can never ever remember me saying that I didn’t want to go to work; that says it all I think,” she said.

“It was just a pleasure to go to work every day, always interesting, always of immense intrigue and an opportunity to work with incredible colleagues to create solutions and to improve care and services for older people and their families,” Jen said.

Her nursing career is one littered with first-ofits-kind achievements and special innovations in the aged care sector, and indicates that even from the earliest point in her working life, Jen was a star in her field.

From a long line of nurses, Jen trained at Royal Perth Hospital (RPH) and graduated in 1971 with the ambition to train in the UK as either a gastroenterology nurse to work with Dr Bernard Lawrence, or a theatre nurse to scrub for Mr Bryant Stokes.

She had been a favourite of surgeons for her organised, calm approach to procedures, and was known for her effervescent, joyful personality.

In late 1975, her trajectory took a 360-degree shift when she met Dr Richard (Dick) Lefroy, the then Professor of Geriatric Medicine at UWA and the Director of the WA Extended Care Service. Dr Lefroy was the WA pioneer of gerontology, and from 1976 he became Jen’s teacher, mentor and friend for the next 42 years.

Under Dr Lefroy’s guidance, she learned the art and science of gerontological nursing at Mt Henry and Sunset Hospitals, and throughout rural WA.

Jen says Dr Lefroy ignited a flame of passion for aged care in her - a flame that still burns brightly to this day, some 46 years later.

RPH created its first dedicated extended care and psychogeriatric ward in early 1976, aptly called Ward One, and at just 25 years of age, Jen became its inaugural charge sister (as they were then called). It was, she says, “real nursing and every branch of nursing: clinical care, teaching, research and management all in one place”.

She’d found her life’s work and passion and for the ensuing nearly half century that followed, Jen’s health and aged care career path would progress upwards and onwards, in both metropolitan and rural communities. This included research with Dr Lefroy that ultimately led to the development of the HACC (now CHSP) program, the development of dementia care and seniors mental health services across the Great Southern Health region, and the introduction of the Stay on your Feet Falls Prevention program into WA.

“In the 1980s, a colleague suggested I make the trip to see what high-quality aged

A Nurse For Life

Right, Jen trained at Royal Perth Hospital and graduated in 1971. Below, Jen has dedicated her working life to the advancement of aged care and dementia care.

care could look like, and what a nugget of gold I found,” recalls Dr Clark.

“This was at a time preceding national aged care standards and the ensuing widespread interest in quality in aged care. Always ahead of her time, Jen had inspired her team and organisation in Narrogin at the time to create a residential environment that reflected the best of aspirations; something we could all learn from, signalling that excellence was possible in all settings, and that aged care was a space and place for innovation, constant improvement and for deeply rewarding professional careers.”

Her legacy is that those who may have slipped through the cracks of society are given dignity, respect and compassionate care until their very last breath.

“At that time, I convinced her to join the public health service and to develop and implement what became known as the Eldercare Health and Aged Care Program in the Great Southern region. It was a first-of-its-kind in seniors’ healthy ageing services, and paved a path for thinking and working differently in aged care; challenging ageism and the negative myths and stereotypes so often associated with age and ageing,” said Dr Clark.

Jen joined Hall & Prior in November 2021, and worked beside a team to open Clarence Estate Health Care Community in March 2022.

“I’m so very grateful for my time working with Hall & Prior and working with CEO Graeme Prior, who has been a wonderful person of vision to work beside, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” she said.

“Nobody stood in the way of our innovation and progress, and now I’m glad to be seeing other nurse leaders have and take those same opportunities to soar higher and higher in their pursuit of excellence in the sector. It’s a joy to watch!”

Jen is more than just a leader; she’s an inspirational totem for those who strive to do better, to be better in their chosen field and give better end-of-life outcomes for those in their care. She manages the dual knack of not only igniting others’ passions but also delivering on the day-to-day minutiae of an individual’s care.

It is this ability to remain intimately connected, personal and human which elevates her to something truly special; big picture issues are always seen through an intensely personal lens of what they will mean for individuals.

Strategies and policy are all very well on paper but when it’s your father or your mother receiving those strategies and policies, it’s important to retain a view of the human impact. In short, Jen has been a champion and advocate of the voiceless, confused and lonely. She has created residential aged care models of delivery which are now seen as the gold standard for those who have reached the last years of their life’s journey. She recognised the value of creating a ‘continuum of community care’ - which is a way of creating communities with aged care at their heart. Examples of this in action include holding ANZAC Day and Christmas services, special in-house shopping days and ways to bring the community outside the aged care home, inside.

Clarence Estate in Albany is the flagship example of this approach - and was and remains very much one of Jen’s highest achievements since it was opened some 21 years ago. At the time, it was the first of its kind in the country and would become a blueprint for a new way of delivering aged care.

Family Ties

Above, with husband Owen, Jen says that she has never found it hard to be passionate about older people and aged care.

“I knew we’d created something special when people would ask to sign up to reserve a spot, many years before it was their time to live there,” she says.

“One gentleman came into my office one day and said that he’d put his name down and ‘couldn’t wait to move into a nursing home’. I hadn’t met anyone like that before.

“It was the idea of ageing in place and getting people to recognise the importance of the fact that as you age, you need to ‘right’ size, not downsize or compromisebut to find the right sized place for you to suit your needs at that particular stage in your life,” she said.

“Clarence Estate is where the best of health and aged care could find its finest expression, including a clinical specialist dementia care program,” she said.

Jen is also being honoured with the opening of a new community centre at her beloved Clarence Estate. To be called the Jennifer Mary Grieve Community Centre and opened by WA Premier Mark McGowan at the end of March, it’s a fitting tribute to such a leader in the aged care space to put her name to something so close to her heart.

Hall & Prior CEO Graeme Prior said that he was exceptionally proud of the recognition she had received.

“Witnessing Jen stepping up to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award was a wonderful moment in this incredible woman’s career,” he said. “It rightly recognised the fact that Jen has been instrumental in introducing so many procedures and care policies which have now become par for the course in the field of aged care.” growth and success.

“I congratulate Jen on this wonderful honour, lending her name to Clarence Estate’s newest addition to the group of aged care services offered in Albany. For generations to come, the Community Centre will be a reminder of this extraordinary woman’s achievements and a fitting tribute to her legacy as a nurse in WA.”

On a more macro scale, her vision to deliver high quality residential care continued to be realised daily through her work at Hall & Prior. She was able to balance the often contrasting commitments of care and commercial outcomes, when amid pressure to deliver more on ever constrained budgets and timeframes.

She has published many reports and documents that continue to push the aged care agenda, from publications on continence to developing a quality life for older Australians. She has also been involved in three research projects related to improving the health and wellbeing of older Indigenous people. She has been appointed to numerous committees, is affiliated with the Royal College of Nursing, Australia’s Gerontic, Leadership & Ethics Group, and has recently completed her Australian Institute of Company Director (AICD) Course to complement her Master of Leadership and Business Management.

“I always say nursing and aged care chose me, it’s a fabulous career. Nurses generalise to begin with and then specialise. I think that gerontological nursing provides a unique, complex and privileged area of health in which to practice holistically in collaboration with your teams. It’s about developing and honing specialist knowledge and skills across the spectrum of ageing in order to promote the quality of life until the end of life. The privilege of trust so often given by older people and their families to gerontological nurses cannot be underestimated.

“I’ve never found it hard to be passionate about older people and aged care,” she said.

“We all have a collaborative role in combatting ageism, debunking myths surrounding ageing and challenging stereotypes. I’ve learned that chronological age doesn’t serve as an accurate descriptor anywhere along one’s lifespan. I’ve also learned that you’re never too young or too old.

“It’s really been a pleasure for me and honestly it feels greedy to receive an award for something I’ve loved that much. There’s an old adage that states “do what you love and love what you do. Well that’s been my very blessed 50-year story.”

Meet The Don

Kathy Lau

Aged Care Home in Sydney, NSW.

Kathy Lau is the Director of Nursing at Caroline Chisholm Aged Care Home in Lane Cove, NSW

and finds herself in the fortunate position of having her dream job. By Gabi Mills.

L&L: How long have you been working in aged care, and what drew you to the profession?

KL: I spent around seven years in acute care nursing in a hospital setting, specialising in renal and haemodialysis. After that. I have spent the last three years in community nursing including aged care management. I was previously the Deputy Director of Nursing at Hall & Prior’s Sirius Cove Aged Care Home for a short time. My first job back in student nursing was as an Assistant in Nursing, and I was also employed by Hall & Prior at Leighton Aged Care Home in WA. I think I’m one of the few people within Hall & Prior to have worked in both WA and NSW. I love the management team and the organisation as a whole.

L&L: Who is someone you admire, and why?

KL: I admire the first Director of Nursing I worked under when I returned to aged care nursing. He was a good listener and was respected by his staff. He was always so kind, and I am trying to follow his management style as I believe we should always show respect to aged care workers.

L&L: What’s the best thing about your job?

KL: This is a very rewarding career and I hope my passion can attract younger generations to the workforce. I really enjoy talking to people, listening to their life stories, their concerns, as well as focusing on their wellbeing.

I believe in showing compassion towards aged care work, respecting our elderly and their hard work over their lifetime and contribution to our country; they really deserve the best.

L&L: Do you have any skills or talents that most people don’t know about?

KL: I’m an ordinary, suburban housewife with three children so I wouldn’t say I have any special skills but I do enjoy baking and cooking. I love children as well as women’s health and wellbeing. I have also spent some of my career researching pregnancy and postpartum care for women in different cultures.

L&L: Let’s go back to when you were 10 years old. What did you want to be when you grew up?

KL: That’s easy. Nursing is my dream job, a passion I inherited from my family.

L&L: What do you think are the best skills that you bring to your job?

KL: I make sure I listen and put into action what I hear from residents and staff.

L&L: How do you think your colleagues would describe you in THREE words?

KL: I’m supportive, a listener and I’m reliable.

L&L: What’s a goal you have for yourself that you want to accomplish in the next five years?

KL: Advocacy in aged care, staff training and aged care quality management.

L&L: What are you happiest doing, when you’re not working?

KL: Jogging, cooking and movie time with my children.

L&L: What would be your personal motto?

KL: Be yourself and follow your heart.

To find out more about Caroline Chisholm Aged Care Home please visit hallprior.com.au.