Care Champions program earns international recognition

Bolton Clarke’s Care Champions program has won Innovation of the Year for Career Development at the 13^th Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Awards, announced in Singapore this week.

The award recognised the success of the Care Champions role in improving customer experience in residential aged care while providing an alternative career progression pathway for personal care workers.

Care Champions work with residents who need extra individual support.

Their responsibilities include checking in with all residents to ensure their comfort, care and support needs have been addressed, keeping families informed and up to date with residents’ care and wellbeing needs, problem-solving and augmenting residents’ planned care and support where necessary.

Since the program was introduced, more than 550 Care Champions have been appointed across Bolton Clarke’s 88 residential aged care homes.

A targeted education program and community of practice have also been implemented to onboard, train and mentor team members throughout their career journey covering key areas including communication skills, person-centred care, customer experience and responding to feedback.

Bolton Clarke Chief Operating Officer Residential Aged Care Glenn Hancock said the recognition was testament to the ongoing work of Bolton Clarke teams supporting residents to age positively.

“From the resident perspective, because Care Champions are able to spend more one-on-one quality time, they can really get to know people and share that knowledge to ensure we are consistently meeting the residents’ individual needs,” he said.

“This program has resulted in measurable improvements in reported customer experience while also future-proofing the workforce by fostering talent retention, attracting top-tier recruits, facilitating career advancement, and prioritising internal staff for caregiving roles.”