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The SWAP Team would like to formally thank NWMPHN and the project staff, for the identification of need and subsequent funding to support the RACF workforce.

The collaboration and close working relationship developed between NWMPHN as the funding body, and the APMHA SWAP Team, allowed for flexibility, innovation, and a more nuanced response for the RACF workforce’s identified growing mental health needs.

This collaboration also provided real-time in depth understanding of what the RACF workforce were / are facing day to day.

The SWAP team was permitted to tailor the program as each variant emerged and subsequently, the mental health needs of the workforce increased. Our clinical expertise informed the methodology of the SWAP program design, which led to careful development of a mental health program that is as flexible in the ever-changing climate of the COVID 19 virus.

COVID-19 was a new frontier for mental health service delivery. Developing a flexible response that would meet the varying landscape, has been challenging. However, we endeavored to be innovative to meet each need as it evolved to ensure the most appropriate supportive program for the RACF Workforce.

The RACF workforce was and continues to be significantly impacted by the COVID 19 Pandemic.

The impact of COVID 19 (Alpha) on the RACF workforce was wide ranging and the SWAP team were confronted with an environment that was unique to a typical disaster mental health response. The issues faced by RACFs included the outcomes from the Royal Commission into Aged Care, the ongoing negative media focus and coverage, the quick adaptation of RACFs to their work practices, roles and intensity that a mostly non-clinical workforce had to respond to through infection control measures, PPE, lockdowns, resident isolation and residents’ safety, whilst managing increasing frustration and anxiety with families. Although the SWAP Team employed a disaster response methodology – what became apparent is that this disaster was not going to end any time soon (unlike a bushfire).

What was (and still is) clear, is that RACFs are in a continual phase of “acute response” and not able to focus on recovery. Each time there is a glimmer of movement out of the response phase, another wave and variant emerged, or fresh outbreak in their respective RACF, plunging them back to acute response phase. Some 2.5 years on, response is ongoing.

Read more about the SWAP program here