No-one likes to think they might be ageist, or that they might not be coming to their work with quite the right attitude.
But sometimes we can do this without meaning to, or without even realising it.
So how do we recognize ageism, why do attitudes matter so much in home care, and what could we do differently? Find out in this episode of SNACK.
Special thanks to all our guests, and to the organisations that helped:
Looking for some inspiration? Check out these great resources and links:
SNACK has been produced by COTA Queensland as part of the Homecare Workforce Support Program, which receives grant funding from the Australian Government.
Andrea Petriwskyj 00:00
We acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which this podcast has been produced and we pay our respects to elder’s past and present. I
00:08
would like them to know, I am not about being aged, I’ve had a full life, I’ve had a job of responsibilities, they are wasting a huge resource by not tapping into all the skills and knowledge that we have.
00:27
And it was just the assumption that because I was a little bit older than him, and grey hair, and that I wouldn’t possibly know how to do that. And
00:37
I do want to be respected and not called your your lover, you’ll let
00:42
them see you know that yes, you want to be there. It’s not just a job. It’s not just a paycheck, you know, it’s your passion.
Andrea Petriwskyj 00:54
Welcome to snack, the aged care podcast where we break down some of the big questions around what it really means to be person centred. I’m Dr. Andrea Petrovsky. I’m a gerontologist and I’m passionate about hearing and sharing the real life experiences of ageing. In this episode, we take a deeper look at something we hear a lot about, but we can find it a bit hard to face. ageism, attitudes and bias. Now no one likes to think they might be ageist or they might not be coming to their work with quite the right attitude. But sometimes we can do it without meaning to or without even realising it. Something we might think of a funny joke, a helpful gesture or in someone’s best interest can actually be quite the opposite. So how do we recognise ageism? Why do attitudes matter so much in home care? And what could we do differently? First up, today, we’re talking about the importance of attitudes, your attitude to your work to the people you’re supporting to their homes. I want to share with you some conversations we had with Naomi and Diane, Naomi supported in her home by a number of different care staff, and Diane has experience as both a provider and a recipient of care services. So Diane, why did people’s attitudes matter? So if carers are trained in how to do care tasks really well? Why does it matter how they approach their work?
02:21
It really is, having somebody come into your home, we have to trust them, they must show us respect. And you do get 99% Our friend firstly, but you will always get the one. I’ve had one who came in, basically didn’t speak, didn’t introduce herself, really seem to be resentful of having to do the work. And that I really should be grateful to her. She’s definitely the minority. But it really makes you wonder whether you should be continuing with the service or not when you’ve had that sort of an experience.
Andrea Petriwskyj 03:01
Yeah. So even with having good experiences, even having just one bad experience like that is enough to make you question your relationship of trust with the organisation.
03:12
It is. So it is. And it’s very much a felt thing that you know, at the end of the service, how are you feeling? Are you feeling happy and waiting them goodbye and saying thank you very much, or are you sort of thinking, Oh, I wish they’d hurry up and go.
Andrea Petriwskyj 03:34
Our next guest Naomi is supported in her home by a number of different care staff. Naomi, respect shown both ways is really critically important, isn’t it?
03:42
The service carriers that I have the second the second lady who came, she asked me a question, I answered it, and she rolled her eyes. And I was which didn’t go down very well. And she sat down 15 minutes, which wasn’t too happy about and she’d only been there a couple of weeks, but there’s no there’s no excuse for that. They’ve just got to have their heart in their job. One lady came and she had the next day that the day off. I was her last flight and she raced through the place and couldn’t get out of the out of there fast enough. What
Andrea Petriwskyj 04:24
would you like our listeners to hear about what good examples look like? Well, just
04:29
listen. And just if if I asked him to do something, please do it and they do. They just wonderful. I just want respect because it’s it’s it’s works both ways. We expected that but it’s not it. It’s not always given back.
Andrea Petriwskyj 04:52
There were some really important reminders from Diane and Naomi that showing respect is vitally important and every intern action you have with someone matters. Showing respect isn’t just in how you speak to someone when you’re in that home, people can feel it by the way you are when you’re with them. Now, one very big problem around attitudes is attitudes towards ageing and older people. And unfortunately, ageism is a huge issue in the community. And in the aged care sector itself. I caught up with Selsey, who’s very involved in her community, including as a volunteer, here’s what Sal see shared with us. Sometimes in the community, we can even see just downright scary disrespect. Have you seen any examples of that in your community? Yeah,
05:41
absolutely. Yes, I have. To double story about the experience I had just recently, I had a conversation with a 30 plus mother of two. And to my surprise, she said, They’re pouring all this money and resources into older people, when they’re just going to die soon, anyway. Oh, wow. And I thought that she went on to say, the budget only has so much money to go around. So her opinions and allergies absolutely shocked me because it’s an older person myself, I felt very vulnerable. And I hopefully I won’t, but if and when I do need it felt quite guilty about asking for help and accepting money from the government. Because I’m as an old person. And I’m pretty helpful. You know, we’re not that important. Do we lose our, our value and our importance as we age to people not not value that anymore are realised not important to anybody anymore? So
Andrea Petriwskyj 06:43
what do you do in your own life to try to address those kinds of attitudes?
06:47
Well, whenever around my grandchildren, I try to lead by example, actually, and I just show an interest in older people, not just older people, but everybody. And you know, and ask them about themselves, talk to them, listen to their stories. And if we can help, you know, help help them in any way, just help them give them a helping hand. And it just sort of shows them that. You know, if they want to earn respect in their own lives, they’ll get that respect if they treat others kindly and respectfully to, I’ll actually believe respect is a learned skill, too. So we have to teach our young people how to respect themselves before they can actually respect other people.
Andrea Petriwskyj 07:32
Diane, who we heard from earlier in this episode, also shared some experiences from her community.
07:39
I was with a group of four people the other day, and I asked them first of all, what did they understand about ageism and heard they experienced ageism. And those words were overlooked. They don’t count. It’s more important for the younger persons to get the health care. They need to be passed to their children, and they feel invisible. We’ve all experienced so to some unintentional or intentional, and at times, I’m sure people are not aware that they’re actually being ageist. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t impact on the person. I have an example mirror in a shop, waiting to be served, your next day serve the person that’s coming up to you. So I just said you obviously don’t want to serve me today. And I walked out. Yeah, because I was invisible to them.
Andrea Petriwskyj 08:52
In our conversations with members of the community, we hear many, many stories about ageist attitudes. Lots of these are in situations like shops or shopping centres in health care, and generally in the community or even within people’s own families. For example, Jun shared with us that she sometimes feels like health providers won’t properly discuss her condition with her and assume she won’t understand. Nola shared an experience of a neighbour making assumptions about her ability to use technology. Maureen spoke to us about feeling ignored and invisible in shops. On the flip side of that, we’ve also heard about positive experiences, including this one from Jill, who’s a care professional with many years experience. Some
09:38
people find that you know, as an ageing person in a care industry, that that can be a little bit challenging, but I’ve had some really very positive lovely experiences. And I’ve always felt that my age has been a positive in offering life skills particularly and life experience. The Client Support is kind of wisdom that comes with age and makes clients feel secure. So
Andrea Petriwskyj 10:07
you found that to be actually really beneficial to your care relationships?
10:12
It did and it has it does. It’s some, you just get the sense that you your life might well might wash probably should say my life is valued by the client, actually, they’re also interested in me in a way that I’m interested in them. And knowing you know, are you were Akira once, and you know what Kara burnouts all about. And being able to talk about those things from a lived experience. It’s really helpful and age is quite complementary to lived experience.
Andrea Petriwskyj 10:49
We also heard from Maureen about the great experiences she had with the staff who support her. And we asked Maureen, if there’s a particular skill or something she feels personal care workers need to do.
11:00
I think it’s coming in with an open mind. And accepting that they are not assuming that I’m an old lady that needs lots of help. I’m quite independent. But I’m quite happy to admit there are lots of things that I do need help with. We do have past life experiences and wisdom, and we still have some skills.
Andrea Petriwskyj 11:31
So what would you share as a good example for new care workers starting out about how to show really good, respectful attitudes towards older people,
11:44
and lots of things can be resolved by communicating, finding out what people need having a genuine empathy for them, or their condition, or their age, and never assuming that you know what they want.
Andrea Petriwskyj 12:08
The ways ageist attitudes can impact care are well known to the folks at ABA, Australia. So we spoke with two of their advocates, Lizzie and Renee, we first asked Lizzy what they see happening in their work.
Lizzie 12:23
I think it is very pervasive within the structure and the model of key. A lot of it’s sitting in our unconscious bias. As advocates, we’re very much having a perspective where we’re working with older people that are coming to us because of issues concerns, compliance, things that aren’t right with their care and services. And there’ll be all sorts of issues sitting at the surface that so much and so many of those this issues are really stemming from those attitudes of ageism and discrimination in the way that older people are spoken to where I don’t know how often we see where someone will start directing the conversation, to maybe a younger person that’s with the older person, rather than to the older person themselves. It’s so much in our behaviour. When we’re interacting with older people there again, I think, unfortunately, sometimes there is intention behind that. Yeah,
Andrea Petriwskyj 13:38
so what would you like homecare providers and homecare staff to be doing differently? What would you like them to know?
Lizzie 13:46
So again, I think we need a lot more training, a lot more education. And again, we need to be constantly challenging. That unconscious bias, really encouraging a self reflective practice, where we’re all constantly reflecting on how we are interacting, to identify as, identify where our strengths and weaknesses are and how we can do things better. I think, as a society at large, we really need to look at the way we think and treat older people. I think we’re a long way from having that really strong culture of respect for our elders.
Andrea Petriwskyj 14:32
Rene, what are some of the examples you see of things our listeners need to think about and challenge for themselves?
14:40
When people are speaking to an older person in this context, rudely or shortly, they might think that they’re not they’re just working fast or whatever, but it’s really obvious we see it a lot. So treating older people like their infant is just absolutely ghastly. Like I’ve lost count Out of the amount of times when I’ve been with older people that I’m working with, and someone will come over and say, Andrea ash inside voice, well done, that’s great. You know, and you sort of sometimes think, Wow, is this a kindergarten? And it can also be about asking questions. Some people really like to have the door open for them. And other people sort of see that a little bit like, oh, gosh, I don’t even think I can open a door, you know. So it’s actually saying, Would you like me to get the door for you, because some people are actually, you know, they find that as their ageing people, maybe being what they think is more helpful, but it’s coming across as you don’t have the capacity anymore.
Andrea Petriwskyj 15:42
To finish up today, I want to share a conversation we had with Mona, who receives services in her home and has also worked in aged care herself, and has been an active consumer representative and advocate nationally. We asked Mona, what she would like you to know about respect and person centeredness
16:00
is simply a matter of respecting that the person is an individual human being with human rights. And, unfortunately, this is not often the case in aged care. Where the perception of older people is one of being frail, vulnerable, not quite with it, not up with the latest trends in technology, all suffering from cognitive decline, being needy, and not contributing to their communities. Being a burden on society, we have a lot to offer as older people. And all anyone needs to do is to listen to what we have to say. And find out that all the people also make a lot of sense, and can still be of great value to society. We want to be acknowledged, we want to tell everybody that we were like them once. And we now need just for somebody to support us the way we need to be supported. Not as we told, we are supposed to be supported. So what we suggest is to just listen, ask and do whatever you think is best within your own capability. We appreciate that immensely.
Andrea Petriwskyj 17:33
We’ve heard some great examples from all our guests today about not only the ways that attitudes and particularly attitudes of respect can be experienced, but also how that affects people. It’s clear that it’s not just about what you say, but how you act and how you are. And it’s the responsibility of all of us individually as care staff, as family members as members of the community, to look at our own attitudes and what messages we might be giving or what we might be seeing others do that isn’t showing respect. That’s today’s snack. Thank you so much for joining us and a big thank you to our guests for sharing their insights and ideas. If you want to find out more, you’ll find some great resources and other good stuff on our website Kota QL d.org.au. You’ll find links in the show notes. And please don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you get the next episode as soon as it’s out. Until next time, thanks again and goodbye from the coda Queensland team. This podcast is part of the homecare workforce support programme, which receives grant funding from the Australian Government
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