Analysis of Member Services Report

January 10 / 2007 by Kevin Marron

Thanks to all those members who filled out their membership forms during last year. We have analysed the information that members provided and have come up with some useful sets of data which are reported below. Our research projects and future member surveys will build on this data. This data is critical in allowing us to back up our policy positon as well as ascertain the structure and needs of the respite sector, and we would appreciate suggestions and comments from members.

1. Membership size

Membership numbers from 05/06 to 06/07 period have remained steady. 05/06 saw a total of 97 financial member organisations, this increased to 98 in 06/07. We lost 10 members and picked up 12 in the 06/07 renewal period.

Table 1. New members joinging in 06/07	Table 2. Non-renewing members in 06/07
Glen Innes Severn Council	Holdsworth Street Community Centre
Dungog and District Neighbourcare Inc	Disability Professionals Pty Ltd
Shellharbour Council	Anglicare Youth and Family Services- Goulburn
Wheelchair & Disabled Association of Australia	Crookwell Neighbourhood Centre Inc
Central West Community Options	Samaritans Enchanced Living Options
Challenge Armidale Ltd	Baptist Community Services - Newcastle
Lockhart & District Community Services	Baptist Community Services - Goulburn
Lorna Dodgkinson Sunshine Home	South Western Sydney Area Health Service
Mudgee Coolah Lifeskills	Wesley Mission - Enfield
Commonwealth Care Respite Centre -Orana
Wellington Multi Service Centre Inc	FaBRIC

2. Regional breakdown

The Metro and Northern region have the biggest membership base with 26 and 22 members respectively. The member size of the northern region can be attributed to its large geographical are. The member sizes of the other regional regions, hunter, riverina, western and southern are comparable.

 Metro: 26 Hunter: 12 Riverina: 11 Western: 17 Northern: 22 South- east: 14

 2b. Regional breakdown of new and ceasing members

Regional breakdown of new members: Western: 5 Northern: 2 Riverina: 1 Sout-east: 1 Hunter: 1 Metro: 1

Regional Breakdown of ceasing members: Western: 0 Riverina: 0 South-east: 4 Hunter: 2 Metro: 4

3. Organisational Staffing and Volunteers
This data is available for 82% of member organisations. An overwhelming 46% of individuals involved with respite care service provision within our membership are volunteers or host families. Direct care workers make up 30% of respite workers, while part-time and full-time staffs make up 15% and 9% respectively (see chart 2).

Number of Staff and Volunteers in member organisations
Only 65% of organisations reported using volunteers. Of those organisations that do not use volunteers, there is a higher relative proportion of fulltime staff as compared to part time staff. In these organisations, full-time and part-time staff both comprise 25% of workers, while direct care workers make up 50%. This trend can be explained by the manner in which the type of service affects an organisation’s staffing mix. For example, within the organisations that do use volunteers, there is a higher proportion of peer support and host family providers. Whereas within those organisations that do not use volunteers, there is a significantly higher proportion of frail age service provision.

While our data does not ascertain the number of hours each worker puts in (for example one full-time worker may do the job of 10 volunteers), considering the fact that individual relationships between clients and service providers matter – the role played by volunteers remains important despite a trend within some service delivery models of moving away from relying on volunteers.

4. Use of the Internet
97 Members have access to an email account, while one does not. 16 Members have also reported that they have a website.

5. Client Information
35 Organisations answered this question. These organisations served a total of 6313 clients over the past year. This is an average of 166 per organisation. However 8 large organisations account for 65% of clients, with each individually serving more than 200 clients.

5b. Primary Disability
33 organisations answered this question. A large majority number of clients in these organisations have an intellectual disability.

Intellectual: 1466 Physical: 451 ABI: 156 Dementia: 65

Sensory: 77 Psychiatric/Mental Health: 59 Autism: 377 Frail Aged: 287 Developmental: 108

The time period over which the number of clients with a primary disability were served was not specified. As such, the numbers when aggregated must be taken with caution. Furthermore a number of members answered this question with a percentage figure, which further complicates comparison with other organisations.

Age range
83 Members answered this question. There are a fewer services with clients in the 0-5 age group and a higher proportion of services with clients in the 50+ age group. The majority of services have clients from a mixed age group. There were however 10 organisations which exclusively provided services to the 50+ age group.

Age Group	Number of Organisations
0-5 5-18 18-29 29-50 50+	47 57 64 59 67

Average weekly Respite Hours
The average weekly respite hours provided to clients question was misinterpreted. Many members filled out figures which represent total hours provided to all clients. However, without knowing the number of clients served in the week concerned, any comparisons for these figures are problematic.

6. Types of Respite Service
In home respite is by far the most common type of respite service provided by our members, with 70% of services providing this service. Peer support, centre based respite, respite options and host family are also common.

Type of Respite	Number of Organisations
In Home Respite	65
Peer Support	45
Centre Based Respite	43
Respite Options	40
Host Family	33
Individual Packages	29
Vacation Care	25
Respite Brokerage	18
Frail Age/Dementia	17
Before/After School Care	14
Carer Respite Centre	8
Social Support	3
Community Respite	1

7. Unmet needs

* NB: The data in this section should be taken with caution due to the scarcity of responses, the confusion evident while members were filling out this section as well as the qualitative nature of the responses.

 Service Capacity
There were a total of 43 member organisations who reported being at service capacity. 16 reported not being at service capacity. The rest of the membership did not answer this question.

Number of referrals a service was unable to take on
In total services without a waiting list reported being unable to take on 309 referrals averaging 2-10 referrals per service.

Waiting list
For those other services which maintain waiting lists there were approximately 700 clients on those waiting lists. The average waiting list size was 31, with a significant dispersal of figures ranging from 1 to 350.

Number of hours requested by new clients
On average, 7 weekly respite hours were requested by new clients a service was unable to take on. (However, unclear as to weather members noted hours per client or hours in aggregate).

Number of clients needing extra respite
A number of clients provided a qualitative answer saying that nearly all their clients required extra respite. From these answers, approximately 798 clients are requesting or still require more respite care to meet their needs, with an average of 27 per service.

Number of clients needing supported accommodation rather than respite
20 members reported a total of 129 clients who really required supported accommodation rather than respite, averaging at approximately 6 clients per service.

Clients who use respite instead of day programs
22 members indicated that they have a total of 270 clients who use respite instead of other day programs.

Average weekly hours for such clients
Members reported that on average 9.6 extra hours were required by clients who use respite instead of day programs. However, there was some confusion in answering these questions as one member said “clients who are using respite hours rather than day programs are doing so by choice”. Aggregats averages are also problematic as it is unclear whether members answered in reference to individual client hours or total client hours.

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