Dear Valued Customers,

The health and wellbeing of you, our staff and the community is our main priority and we want to ensure we do all we can to keep everyone protected and safe and that you continue to receive the services you need.

This means that we are required to make changes to how we provide supports. We will now be limiting support to Essential Services and expanding our non face to face supports, this will take effect from Thursday 9 April.

As an individualised provider this will look different for each person as we respond to your needs and unique circumstances. Our Essential Services will relate to your basic requirements and specific needs. These will include:

• Supporting you within your own home or garden area
• Providing you with personal care
• Medication access and prompting

• Shopping support with an offer to do this on your behalf or to help you at home whilst someone else from your household does this
• Meal preparation and cooking support in person or online
• Domestic cleaning support
• Social and emotional support in person or online
• Support Co-ordination to help you to connect with additional disability and mainstream supports

What this means for you:

Some of your services will change and your support team will discuss this with you.

Before you receive support:

Your support worker will check in with you that you and any present family members are well. If you are unwell and have flu like symptoms, please let them know.

Supporting you in home:

We can still support you within your own home or garden. Social distancing (where appropriate) and personal hygiene guidelines will be followed.

We recommend that a specific area is allocated in your home where activities can be done together. With you we can find activities in and around the home that would interest you. This might be the time to be creative, learn a new skill, reconnect with people by phone and online, and use this time together well.

Supporting you outside of your home:

Government advice is that people should not be leaving their home unless it is for essential business and short periods of exercise, therefore from Thursday 9 April any activity in your local community will be for a maximum of 2 hours. Support within your home or in your garden can be provided for longer periods of time.

You and your support worker can still go out for some exercise, get your groceries any medication within a 5km radius of your home and for a maximum of 2 hours.

Interchange offices:

We are limiting visits to our Interchange offices and they are now only used by our staff to collect essential items and to carry out their essential work. Our offices are closed to people we support and members of the public until further notice.

Interchange Question and Answer Session/Engagement group:

I would like to invite you to an online session to answer any questions that you have around Interchange supports and changes we are making at this time.

To help us to best understand the needs, ideas and perspective of our staff we are now establishing a staff engagement group. We are very interested to hear from you, if you would like to be part of a similar feedback and engagement group for people we support and families.

If you would like to be involved please contact us at hello@interchangewa.org.au with your name, email address and contact details.

What happens now?

Your support teams will be contacting you to talk about your individual support needs. It might be useful to think about:

• What services and supports are essential to you

• If you or anyone in your home could be at high risk if they would be infected
• How you would like us to contact you with COVID-19 updates (e.g. email, text, phone call etc.)
• If you would be interested in joining an Interchange Q&A video session and/or engagement group

Are you an essential worker? Please do talk to us if you are an essential worker and require longer or different supports.

Do you have feedback or questions?

 The changes to our services are to ensure you and our staff are safe and that you continue to receive the essential supports that you need. If you have any feedback or concerns please contact your Team Leader, call (08) 9329 9399 or email me via hello@interchangewa.org.au.

I know that when we work together, during this difficult time, we can overcome the challenges and continue to find new ways to provide meaningful services.

We are here to help. Stay Safe.

Kind Regards

Justin O’Meara Smith
Chief Executive Officer

Please find a PDF Version of this letter HERE