The Group Homes Australia Founder and Executive Director had the 500+ audience at the LEADERS SUMMIT in Sydney break out into applause when she likened the care of people with dementia to putting people in jail, and how her thriving business let the same people live freely.
In simple terms, Tamar provides homes like you find in a normal suburban street and reshapes them as group homes where 6 to 10 people with dementia can live together, with support staff called home makers, assisting the residents to live a normal life.
There was a strong interest by retirement village operators in establishing a GHA home in individual villages. With the number of village residents with increasingly higher acuity, including dementia, villages do not have the staff trained in dementia on-site, especially after hours.
By having a GHA home on site delivers a continuum of dementia care plus respite.
Tamar shared her vision for dementia care at the LEADERS SUMMIT:
Tamar detailed the staffing structure and pricing of her clients at her 26 houses in Sydney and then made an offer to put Group Homes Australia into retirement villages as a co-located business to provide care for people living with dementia 24 hours, seven days a week.
She needs "ideally 1,000sqm, and if you don't have 1,000sqm², 750sqm (of land) is good enough".
"Co-locating a Group Homes on the land allows for two things. If the person does develop significant cognitive impairment, they could move within the village to the Group Homes house. They still stay in the community, and you will see a significant reduction in those unmet needs because there's familiarity.
"And the one thing we know that supports a person living with dementia is familiarity and friendliness.”
"This is where it becomes exciting: where it can be a flexible respite….we will train the support partner to be part of the solution.”
