Our Director, Michael de Jong, spent some of his holiday time supporting indigenous communities around the Eyre Peninsula region.

Michael has an enduring love of the Eyre Peninsula and Ceduna district, and a fascination with local indigenous communities, having visited the area many years ago and meeting with some inspiring folk from the local Oasis Church.

The church, and participating groups, have been running a successful school holiday program for many years, providing free entertainment and performance opportunities, arts and crafts, games and activities for around 200 underprivileged kids and youth in the Ceduna area and surrounds.

Michael volunteered his time to transport kids from Koonibba, an Aboriginal community 40kms out of Ceduna to attend the program daily.

Assured Home Care also sponsored 12 indigenous girls from the Far West region to represent the State at the National Indigenous Netball Championships on the Gold Coast in late January.

Through the support of donations, which went to cover uniforms, shoes, transport and accommodation, the girls had the opportunity to test themselves against some of Australia’s best, achieving good results across all divisions. It was a pleasure to play our part in helping the girls succeed.

Back at home base, we were pleased to lend support to some other worthy causes.

We had a visit from the Kindness Kombi in December in the lead-up to their ‘A Merry Kindmas’ event celebrations.

Held at Semaphore on Christmas Day, the event is designed to provide a safe, inclusive space for all to enjoy, with free food, drinks, games, chill-out areas, and entertainment. Christmas can be a challenging time for some, and these guys did their bit to spread the kindness around, providing a fun place to hang out with lots of other kind people!

It was our pleasure to donate a gazebo and beach shades for the event, as well as a $100 Coles/Myer gift voucher.

We also continued to support local radio station, 1079 Life, through their annual 15-Can Christmas Challenge and outdoor broadcast in Mosely Square in December. It’s our way of supporting a station whose community values align with Assured’s, and to continue to reach out to the local community.

Congratulations to our Christmas raffle winner, Christine, who couldn’t be more excited to receive all of her favourite SA food goodies in the one hamper, “Thank you soooooo much for that awesome prize!! You’ve made my Christmas!”

Ahh, back to work!

Further Information

To find out more about the Ceduna School Holiday program, visit: https://www.cedunaoasis.com/
Get ready for next year’s National Indigenous Netball Championships at https://www.facebook.com/pg/sanunga.netball/posts/

Help spread the kindness vibes at:
instagram: @kindnesskombi
facebook: facebook.com.au/thekindnesskombi

This year’s Breakfast theme of ‘Transform your World’ is a concept very close to our heart.

“Having the privilege to positively influence the lives of those less fortunate – to play a part in transforming one life at a time – is what motivates us every day.”

In keeping with this theme, we ran a competition, asking attendees to tell us about the small steps they would take to transform our world. With the winning entrant being given the chance to ‘pay it forward’ by being named as the donor of a $1,000 travel voucher from The Good Scout Co. to a lucky Assured Home Care client.

We received many wonderful responses, so many in fact we were unable to choose just one.

We had to go with two.

James and Daisy were selected as our dual winners with the following inspirational thoughts on how they would ‘transform our world;

“Caring, loving and accepting one another regarding their background, to compromise and talk about conflicts and differences and help everybody.” – James

“Doing the most that I could do personally to help those around me. It may not change the world, but it may change their life.” – Daisy

Very well said.

To help us select a lucky client to receive the voucher we asked our staff to nominate someone who they believed deserved a holiday.

Once again, the response was wonderful, but the following submission from Support Worker, Jemma Burford was a stand out;

“My Client Georgina lives at home with her mother. She is 35 and has an amazing, positive attitude about life. She helps others by volunteering at a local community centre for a positive ageing programme and she brings a lot of joy to the people she helps. Georgina helps others in so many ways yet has a lot of her own struggles which she never complains about. It is a pleasure working with Georgina and I believe she deserves a break to enjoy herself just like all our clients do.”

An amazing, positive attitude

Georgina – or ‘Georgie’ as she is known to friends and family – has an acquired brain injury as the result of two road accidents.

Devastatingly she was hit by a car 2004 while riding on the back of a motorcycle. And again in 2013 while simply walking.

As a result of her accidents, Georgina spent over a year in Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre and now lives with short term memory loss and has some difficulty processing information or expressing herself correctly.

Despite her difficulties Georgina is a curious and genuinely friendly woman, with a positive attitude, she spends much of her time giving back to the community. Volunteering as a kitchen hand/ cook at Wakefield house, a positive ageing centre run by the City of Onkaparinga.

Georgina is a much-loved face during ‘Friendship Club’ – a community networking program – helping to serve food to around 35 people at a time.

“All of the visitors know her as very friendly and chatty.” Says Jemma.

Georgina humbly downplays this. She takes her work seriously explaining that she can’t muck around too much as her memory can make staying focused difficult at times.

But she admitted that she does have fun joking around with her co-workers.

A trait Jemma is quick to confirm.

“She jokes around with me all the time!” she says.

“I often hear you two laughing from upstairs,” says Dorothy, Georgina’s mother.

“I often hear you two laughing from upstairs”

The friendship between Jemma and Georgina is clear.

“I just love spending time with her…she’s such a happy chappy”

A pretty cool gift

Meeting at a local café, Georgina was officially presented with the holiday voucher by Disability Support Partner, Kelsie on behalf of Jamey and Daisy.

Georgina was genuinely stunned to be receiving the gift.

“Wait, I won this!?” she exclaimed.

All thanks to Jemma and the kindness of two strangers.

Jemma was quick to reiterate her reasons for nominating Georgina.

“She just does such a wonderful job with work. She deserves a bit more of a break.”

While viewing some of the options on The Good Scout Co’s website, Kangaroo Island was suggested as a possible destination.

“I’ve never ever imagined going to Kangaroo Island,” said Georgina.

“That’s pretty cool, hey!”

She recently received the biggest reward of all, however, when long-term client Owen spoke to her clearly for the very first time.

Sarah has been working with Owen for the last 6-7 years; assisting his daily care needs, attending the odd outing here and there and providing occasional respite for the family.

Owen (22) has Spastic Quadriplegia Cerebral Palsy and is mostly non-verbal. Growing up, he attended a special disability program at Hamilton Secondary School (FLATO unit) and now enjoys day options with SCOSA, Monday to Friday, where activities range from cooking and gardening, to fitness and dance and art and craft. Sarah provides personal care support to Owen in the afternoon when he arrives at home.

A special bond

Over the years, Sarah has developed a strong bond with Owen (or ‘Owen MacGowen’ as she has nicknamed him), and with Owen’s entire family.

“We are very lucky. Sarah is a person that we get along with well, and trust,” says Owen’s mother, Carol.

“Sarah is particularly attuned to Owen’s mood and behaviour,” she continues.

“He also has some special needs, particularly when it comes to feeding (administered through peg feeding) but Sarah has had training from Assured Home Care in how to manage this.”

“We feel that it is possible for us to leave Owen in Sarah’s capable hands knowing that he will be well looked after,” says Carol.

“She’s almost like one of the family ”

Laughter and joy

Every afternoon, Owen waits in his chair at the window for Sarah to come for her shift. As soon as he sees her coming up the driveway, he gets very excited and starts making noises.

Owen loves seeing Sarah because she makes him laugh.

“We have a lot of fun together,” says Sarah.

“His Dad, David, puts on some 80’s music and we sing and dance along.”

“Owen thinks it’s hilarious.”

During a recent shift, Sarah received her biggest reward of all.

After dancing around and making Owen laugh hysterically, Sarah was just about to put him into his sling when Owen looked up and clearly said,

‘Thank you, Sarah’.

Sarah was so surprised and overwhelmed that she had tears in her eyes.

“Whilst Owen will often vocalise and make out the occasional word, he has never spoken to me so directly before,” she says.

“It’s been the highlight of my career so far!’

Through the good and the bad

Life doesn’t always go smoothly, however.

Owen recently had a health scare, coming down with pneumonia and having to go into emergency care in hospital.

In her own time, Sarah went to visit Owen in the hospital.

“I was really frightened for him,” she says.

When he saw Sarah, Owen’s eyes lit up and he started smiling and making excited noises.

“It made me feel so special”, says Sarah.

“Like, Wow!” she laughs.

Although, she then found it very hard to leave him as she could see how sad he was.

“His face made this perfect sad emoji face,” she says.

“I really felt for him, and fortunately he recovered well.”

Wouldn’t change a thing

Sarah has been working with Assured Home Care since the company began, “as [employee] No. 38” she laughs.

Whilst Sarah is the first to confess that domestic duties are not her greatest interest, the personal bond and one-to-one relationship that she forms with her clients certainly is.

As a big part of Owen’s adult life, Sarah has got to know him deeply.

“I think Owen is a lovely, smart and kind man,” says Sarah.

“And, I believe he understands a lot more than people would think.”

Sarah continues to feel valued and appreciated for the work that she does with Owen, and others.

“I love my job”, says Sarah.

“I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”