South Eastern

Community

Connect

Annual Report 2015—2016

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Our Mission

Supporting the community by providing

services, programmes and advocacy to

eliminate barriers, enhance social inclusion

and to improve quality of life.

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Report from the Chair 4

Report from the Treasurer 6

The Board 8

Report from the Executive Officer 12

Staff 14

Volunteers 16

Our Programs 18

Aged and Disabilities 18

- Individual Support 18

- Group Support 22

- The Cottage Dementia Centre 24

Families Services 26

Community Builders 30

Organisational Structure 32

Sponsors and supporters 33

Finance 34

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REPORT

FROM

CHAIR

The mission of South Eastern Community Connect is to support the community by providing services, programs and advocacy to eliminate barriers, enhance social inclusion and to improve quality of life. In this I am pleased to say that under the management of our Executive Officer, Kate Melhopt, it has been another successful year.

The most noticeable change for all stakeholders may have been our change of name and logo. Our programs and services have far outgrown the scope of a neighbourhood centre of the past, and with that it was time to change our name to reflect our focus and our mission as South Eastern Community Connect.

Our new logo represents the main areas of our work in meeting the distinct needs of the diverse groups in our community, our services for the elderly and people with disabilities and for

Report from

the Chair families with young children. It also shows, how with us at the centre, these groups link together like puzzle pieces to create one diverse, vibrant and cohesive community.

As we embrace our new identity, we move forward to grow and diversify our services and to promote our mission and what we offer this community to create a better future for all.

The path to this better future for all in our community is promising to be a steep one with the move by both Commonwealth and State governments to individual funding through My Aged Care and NDIS rather than direct funding to organisations such as ours continues to present many challenges.

You can be assured that SECC has a planned and strategic approach to these challenges including diversifying our revenue sources to reduce our reliance on government and by adopting a branding and marketing strategy to increase public awareness of our services. Our Strategic Plan is

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REPORT

FROM

CHAIR

Thank you to all our highly valued volunteers. SECC is a stronger and healthier organisation because of your support.

Thanks also to all our financial partners be it government or private. We wouldn’t exist without you. This Annual Report reflects the diversity and strength of South Eastern Community Connect. I look forward to another successful year as we continue working together for the good of our community.

Graham Hawkes

Chair

built on the four pillars of organisational success – quality services, strong partnerships, professional staff and a resilient organisation. You can be assured that the Board and Executive Officer continue to strive to ensure these aims are achieved. We continue to challenge ourselves to not only adapt to change but to examine, evaluate and enhance our aims, objectives and services.

Thank you to my fellow Board of Management directors for your enthusiasm, commitment, diligence and expertise throughout the year. Your support for SECC is much appreciated

On behalf of the Board, thank you to Kate and her dedicated, skilled and professional staff. The standards and national accreditation reached and maintained across the organisation should make you proud. You make a difference every day in the lives of the most vulnerable members of our community.

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REPORT

FROM

CHAIR

Report from

surplus is $98,225 which is down from last year, however if you consider the cost of relocation of $64,139 which is an extraordinary expense, in real terms the surplus has increased.

The total assets are $1,583,378 and this includes the purchase of a new Toyota Hiace at a cost of $54,000 and the new Toyota Coaster at a cost of $103,857 which will undergo modifications later in the year. Also new to the fleet, is a Hyundai I30 Station Wagon this vehicle cost $22,990. Transport is an integral and very important facet of the services we provide.

the Treasurer

This financial year has proved to be challenging operationally, however the finances show strong results. The relocation of SECC was a very testing time. The negotiating skills of Kate and her team came to the fore, and the outcome that we are still in the complex is a credit to them.

South Eastern Community Connect increases its strong financial position each financial year. The retained earnings as at 30.6.2016 are $710,719 an increase of $91,658 from last year. The

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The liabilities total $872,659 this figure includes grants in advance of $51,350 and staff entitlements of $473,764.

The proposed amalgamation of local Councils is a consideration for the future and only time will tell if that poses any difficulties for SECC. Our main funding sources are State and Federal Governments with only minimal assistance from Local Government.

Having almost three quarters of a million dollars in reserves South Eastern Community Connect is well placed to meet any challenge. Congratulations to Executive Officer, Kate Melhopt for her outstanding management of a very large organisation and her ability to move SECC forward.

Personally I would like to thank our accountant John Ferguson, for his readiness to answer any questions and his sage advice.

Bev Martin

Treasurer

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Graham Hawkes, Chair

Graham looks back on a long career in executive roles in the NSW State Government, bringing with him experience in corporate governance, risk management, strategic planning and performance management. As Chair, he ensures SECC operates under the guiding principle of what is best for the organization and its stakeholders. Graham has been a Board member since 2011.

The Board

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Bev Martin, Treasurer

Bev is the managing director of Crashing Water Pty Ltd, a consultancy to business, and is employed as the Events Manager for Mark Moran, Vaucluse. Her experience in NGOs spans over 25 years with management boards of Waverley Action for Youth Services, Edina Aged Care, Norman Andrews House and Bondi Youth Accommodation, Bondi and Districts Chamber of Commerce and Sydney Wyde Housing Society.

Dr Lisa Toohey

Lisa is an academic of the Law Faculty at the University of New South Wales where she is an Associate Professor. Prior to academia she worked as a commercial lawyer in large firms in Australia and overseas.

Lisa was first elected to the SECC Board in late 2014. Lisa brings to the board her experience on regulatory and governance matters.

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Janet Green

Janet is currently the General Manager of the Junction Neighbourhood Centre. She has worked in social planning for nearly 30 years, 20 of which have been in the non-government sector.

Janet brings extensive experience managing community based organisations to our Board. Janet has been a Director since 2011 .

Denise Wasley

Denise is the Office Manager and Community Coordinator at the Kingsford Legal Centre. She has lived in Mascot for over 10 years and is an experienced community worker.

Denise has been involved in SECC as a board member, on and off, for over 7 years and has served as Secretary and Chair of the Board in the past.

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Chris Blunt

Chris currently works for a large multi-national Project Management firm with over 12 years’ specific experience and training in Human Resources, Quality Control, Management Systems and Process Re-engineering; Chris joined the board of SECC in 2015 after being involved with the service for more than 10 years.

Greg Killeen

Greg is an active member of several community, disability and government committees and has been on our board for more than 13 years. He contributes his expertise in advocacy for an increase in funding and for different types of flexible community and disability services and programs that are client focused, person-centred and meet the needs of people with disability, their family and carers.

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REPORT

FROM

CHAIR

Executive Officer Report from the

The Year 2015-16 has been a year of great challenges, but also of many successes and new beginnings for South Eastern Community Connect.

Changes to both the aged and disability sectors through the introduction of My Aged Care and the NDIS from July 2017 are having profound impacts on our operating environment and creating uncertainty and confusion with existing clients and within the wider community.

The introduction of My Aged Care (MAC) in July 15 saw many external teething difficulties and resulted in a significant drop of appropriate referrals across all our Commonwealth Home Support Programs with disastrous effects on our outputs. Unfortunately, I expect this to continue to be a challenge into the future.

To meet the challenges of a restructured sector we have increased the promotion of our services so that we can become the preferred local provider. We secured expert external support in developing a marketing and communications strategy, and the end of the financial year saw the first stage of implementing the strategy with the redevelopment of the newsletter and other marketing materials.

In October 2015 we also received notice that we would need to relocate our offices due to redevelopment of the Shopping Centre. We have adjusted to the smaller office space by downsizing our toy library. The new office location unfortunately has also resulted in a decline in foot traffic.

The increasing cost of service delivery has resulted in a

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fleet to address this

additional need.

Our dedicated team of staff and volunteers share a common goal to achieve the best outcomes for those in our community; without these amazing people there would be no successes and all challenges would appear insurmountable. Thank you may only be two little words but signifies the depth of our appreciation for all that you do.

review of our entire program operations, sustainability will only occur with diversification within services, new partnerships, an increase in fee for service and the use of volunteers.

Despite these internal and external developments we are proud to look back on a number of achievements for our organisation and for our clients.

We introduced new services such as the Eastlakes Outside of School Hours Care and increased the number of families accessing the service. Researched and redesigned existing programs to meet the changing needs of the community for example Dads & Bubs Bonding and established an Intergenerational Playgroup.

We also finalised a new

program policy to introduce

flexible transport within the

aged and disability services

and expanded our transport

Kate Melhopt,

Executive Officer

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Staff 2015-2016

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Management

Executive Officer: Kate Melhopt Manager Child and Family Programs & Community Builders Program: Vida

Tebyani

Communications

Communications Manager: Carmen Welss

Administration

Centre Coordinator: Julie Gray Accountant: John Ferguson Information Support Officer: Amber Jones , Carla Ruru

Aged and Disability Programs

Community Transport Coordinator: Lili He Transport Workers: Duc Coung Luu, Francis Heming, Julie Faleta, Volodymyr Perederiy,

Social Support Coordinator & Flexible Respite Coordinator: Irene Trovato Social Support Workers: Debra McDermott, Nick Belitsis, Raelene Bathis Flexible Respite Care Workers: Angela Castillo, Beatriz Londono , Carmen Correa, Franca Scalici, Priscilla Hair, Michael Attia

Food Services Coordinator: Lili He, Sophia Chilvers (Acting) Food Services Workers: Mark Hawkins, Karen Phillips

The Cottage Dementia Day Centre Coordinator: Amy Drewe Cottage Support Workers: Viviana Berasain, Brett Martin, Alan Spink. Bus Driver: Carmelo Castorina, Fernando Pazmino

Child and Family Programs

Family and Childrens Services Programs Team Leader: Bronwynn Jursik Family Support Workers: Maryam Farjood, Lina Teran, Stacey Bahram, Michelle Goldthorpe Toy Library Administrator: Annie Tomlinson

Family Worker: Ruming Yang, Julie Katz (Acting) SMOOSH Coordinator: Rekkha Moda

SMOOSH Workers: Kohinoor Chowdury, Mariko Nader, Mia Apostolatos, Sabina Rashid, Sebastiana Wooldridge, Shirin Haragozli, Mariana Chatziemmanouil, Zaeed Huq and Kristin Gray

Community Builders Programs

Multicultural Worker: Mila Acevedo Community Worker: Ashrafur Rahman, Gerard Howard

Teachers: Gladys Vasco (sewing), Marian Kernaham (English)

Volunteer Program Coordinator: Sue Ohanian

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Thank you to all our volunteers without whom our work would not be possible. Your contribution is invaluable.

Ah Poon Lee Andy Liang Asya Shmaryan Beatriz Londono Betty Valius Bev Martin Carla Ruru Catherine Fraser Chris Blunt Christa Thewes Denise Wasley Doming Rafael Suligoy Donna-Faye Thomas Eduardo Figueroa Elena Bota Erica Huang Fanny Cerioni Fernando Pazmino Frances Heming Germana Del Valle

Graham Hawkes Greg Killeen Gregory Stevens Hector Tapia Helen Cruise Helen Harris Ibragim Batyrshin Ilda Migirdicyan Janet Green Jill Vincent John Langdon John Segal Klaudiya Bubis Lilian Martinez Linglu Guo Lisa Toohey Lisa Gilanyi Margaret Han Maria Chavez Maria Lara

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Maureen Sale Mia Ariston Michael Taylor Min San Song & Yun Fang Lu Nancy Ovando Patricia Pappas Penny Dalton Priscilla Bonham-Carter Ricardo Aponte Samira Mittas Shirin Gharagozli Sima Rezaei Sophia Chilver Stephanie Forbes

Stephen Sun Sue Ohanian Susana Fernandez Talia Fernandez Tania Nand Tetiana Stavyska Thi Mai Ho Veronica Wilson Ximena Aranguiz Yuk Ling Man Iris Knight Shazia Ali Indhira Sierra Shazia Chaudhry

Congratulations to our volunteer Betty Valius for receiving

the annual Vi Robbins Volunteer Award presented to the

community’s most outstanding volunteer. Matt

Thistlethwaite MP presented the award to Betty for more

than 30 years tireless, conscientious and generous work

for our organisation.

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AGED & DISABILITIES Individual Support

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With the roll out of My Aged

Care, 2015-2016 has been a year

of challenges and adaptation for

individual support at South

Eastern Community Connect.

The new system has seen a

decline in referrals for many

support organisations, and ours

has been no exception. As the

system goes through its teething

stage, our clients and our

organisation benefit from our

patient, knowledgeable and

dedicated staff adapting to the

new changes. While pre-existing

client numbers remained stable

we received significantly fewer

referrals.

For Seniors Week we enlisted

students as volunteers to help

seniors get the most out of

their electronic devices.

The event was so popular with

both seniors and students that

we are now exploring options to

offer one-on-one tech sessions

with our students and seniors

on an ongoing basis.

3,450

143

hours of flexible respite care

Hours of home visits

AGED & DISABILITIES 76

Visits to medical appointments with our Medical Companion Volunteers

143

Phone calls made to check on people’s wellbeing

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AGED & DISABILITIES

Individual Support

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Trips to the shops with 83 clients.

1,443 Bags of fruit and vegetables delivered

Fresh fruit and vegetable deliveries, food and nutrition continue to be a major part of the work at South Eastern Community Connect.

In the financial year 2015-16 the Department for Social Services renewed our contract with the request that we expand our services to meal preparation and promotion of nutrition and healthy diets.

We now provide recipes for healthy meals with each bag of produce. We also extended the program to recruit a new staff member to cook at home with our clients. For those who cannot go to the shops themselves we now also offer a list shopping service .

150

Hours of volunteers packing produce boxes

Trips to the shops with a clients shopping list 100

3111

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AGED & DISABILITIES

Transport is a key to mobility, independence and access to social interactions. Our fleet of six cars and six buses have been on the road every working day of the year to help clients get from A to B.

Our transport ranges from social outings for groups of varying interests and cultural backgrounds to the shopping bus and a door to door service for our dementia day centre.

In the financial year 2015-16 we identified our clients’ need for flexible, individual

transport. We set in place strategies, secured funding, vehicles and staff and are excited to have kickstarted the program at the very beginning of the new financial year.

We also welcomed more than 40 new Russian clients who now have their own regular bus excursion.

53,345 Kilometres on the road

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AGED & DISABILITIES

Group Support AGED & DISABILITIES

863

Bus trips providing access to social outings, exercise programs and to shopping trips

Our buses also provide transport for some of our social groups.

In 2015-16 we became the transport provider for a new group in Matraville and for the 55+ social group at Eastlakes Community Centre.

We also welcomed our Greek Carers group to South Eastern Community

Connect and are delighted to provide regular outings. At Beaconsfield Community Centre the Lunch Group keeps going strong with up to 20 clients returning every week to stay socially connected and active.

Social Groups Sessions for groups of varying interests, cultural and language backgrounds

352

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social discussions and

games.

A recent assessment of the

clients shows the success of

the program. For most of

the clients deterioration

has clearly slowed down

during their time at 'The

Cottage.' Five clients

returned the same or even

slightly better results, and

one client went from a

16/30 score to a 24/30

score on a particular

cognitive test. 25 and above

is considered 'normal in the

general population'.

Our dementia day centre,

the Cottage in Rushcutters

Bay, has seen a busy year

with up to 12 clients a day

engaging in individually

tailored activities to

counteract the effects of

their condition.

Cottage Coordinator Amy

Drewe has been networking

in the local community

resulting in the donation of a

piano and cross stitching

materials, further enriching

her clients’ time at the

centre.

Regular activities include

quizzes, painting, walks,

AGED & DISABILITIES

Group Support

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1,890 Hours of care provided , including activities such as quizzes, painting and bingo to stimulated cognitive activity, nutritious meals and door to door transport using one of the centre’s buses

37 Clients and their families welcomed to the centre

Nutritious lunches served

1,443

Hours per week of program development by our diversional therapist, planning activities, assessments, venue set up and catering and liaising with clients and families.

40

More than

50

Assessments of potential new clients

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Family Services

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Strong, healthy families are the foundation of strong, healthy communities.

Modern families come in all shapes and forms, and at South Eastern Community we provide support for them all.

2015-16 has been a busy year with more than 152 families using our services for more than 210 children.

Our staff secured more than $ 14,000 worth of grants to run parenting support programs, ranging from our parenting workshops to playgroups and our toy library.

61 Parents attended our parent information sessions with child minding provided for 18 children

33 Babies weighed, measured and checked at our Blue Book sessions with a child health nurse

Our Safe and Multicultural Outside of School Hours Care (SMOOSH) at Gardeners Road Public School now looks after a community garden complete with chickens funded by a grant from the City of Sydney. The children grow vegetables, learn about sustainability and supplement their meals with produce from the garden. Any surplus is being sold to the community to support the garden.

We now also have a new SMOOSH at Eastlakes Public School, providing parents with the opportunity to work outside of school hours and providing students with quality educational activities.

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Family

Services

Mum’s English classes with child minding

1,800

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Hours of outside school hours care at Gardeners Road and Eastlakes Public School for a total of 90 children each day

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Babies weighed and measured for their Blue Book check ups

79

Parents and their children attended our Farsi group, and 12 children participated in 64 Farsi language classes

Inclusion Support funding received, covering the costs of extra educators at SMOOSH to support children with additional needs.

$52,000

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Children attended the seven school holiday activities 210

Toys borrowed from our toy library by 61 families 1,233

64

78

Playgroup sessions attended by around 120 parents and 150 children

Parents attended 18 different information sessions and parenting workshops

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Community

Builders South Eastern Community

Connect provides a range of

services to meet our clients’

various needs. But we do not

only serve the individual. We

are here to build a strong

community with the capacity

to support its members.

In 2015-16 we had many

opportunities to produce

and apply the glue that

keeps our community

together—through our

volunteers, our clients and

our staff.

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3,063

Community Events attracted more than 1,000 people

People attended 362 social and recreational groups and activities

30% increase In number of active volunteers at the centre

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1938 People used our JP services

1689

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People attended 291 Life skills classes, including computer classes, sewing and language classes

Families were spared the consequences of their inability to pay bills or fines through our Work Development Order Scheme and the Energy Accounts Payment Assistance (EAPA) Scheme.

305

People attended 10 information sessions and on subjects including IT, hearing and Centrelink

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Sponsors Partnerships &

We wish to thank our funding bodies, corporate supporters and community partners for their support in 2015-16.

Thank you also to the following donors of in-kind and monetary gifts;

Richardson & Wrench Bondi Beach, LJ Hooker Bondi Beach, Woollahra General Practice, Bondi Doctors, Samantha Bennett - Drawn Outdoors, Brig Salden – SBS, Dannielle Fletcher – RetroSpectrum, Charlotte Dalton, Journalism and Media Department - University of Technology Sydney, Peter Lemish, Gita Kamath

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Shop 84, Eastlakes Shopping Centre

Eastlakes NSW 2018

T 02 8338 8506 F 02 8338 8502

secc@secc.sydney

www.secc.sydney