The Transit Lounge

Vicki O'Halloran is the chief executive officer of Somerville Community Services. She says the creation of a satisfying domestic environment is a pivotal part of developing a sense of community for people living with disabilities.

When Vicki O’Halloran was growing up in a small town in Tasmania she noticed that people in the community who had disabilities were often called unpleasant names. She also reaslied they were segregated from the community and Vicki saw the negative impact on that group of people came from the way the community treated them.

It was these early insights that eventually led to her current role as chief executive officer of Somerville Community Services.

Somerville is a not-for-profit community organisation and an agency of UnitingCare, whose mission is to “enhance the dignity and quality of life of people most disadvantaged in and damaged by our society".

Based in Western Australian, Somerville extends into the Northern Territory and the Asia Pacific region, providing family and disability services including supported accommodation for people with severe to profound disabilities, acquired brain injury and challenging behaviours.

Somerville houses are staffed 24 hours a day but avoid the clichés of institutionalised disability services and instead operate under the principal of Social Role Valorisation, which promotes dignity and respect.

The creation of a satisfying domestic environment is a pivotal part of developing a sense of community within the houses. Vicki says that when neighbours, relatives and health care professionals visit the houses they expect to walk into a typical institutional setting and are surprised to discover a modern, well-equipped and warm home with good art and bedrooms that have a sense of individuality.

Residents are encouraged to develop and enjoy freedom of choice with associated responsibilities. “We are very alert to the barriers of people with disabilities,” says Vicki. “Some of the biggest barriers are those created by us, people in the community who are not sure how to approach them and who spend too much time focusing on their disability rather than their abilities.”

The ethos of the Uniting Church is the foundation of Somerville. “It’s our value base,” Vicki says.

“We are an organisation that is founded on Christianity and has a close and continuing association with the Uniting Church.

“I’d like to think if you walked into any of our working environments you’d see that we’re an energetic, focused, living, moving organisation, as opposed to an old fashioned, stale organisation.

“We have very high standards and we want to improve the quality of people’s lives.”

The key is to strive to ensure that residents are engaged in activities in the house on a day-to-day basis.

“Our disability support workers, for example, would not be hanging someone’s clothes on the line without having them with them. Whether the person can reach the line or not is unimportant. It’s the fact that this is a task that I’m paid to do for you but you’re included in that task,” she says.

“Instead of just paid support workers feeding you, dressing you, showering you, helping you get into bed, we try and focus on the importance of the person. I’m not saying we’re perfect but we are extremely alert to that. There’s a program called Person Centred Active Support and we train people in that. It’s a model that identifies that everybody, no matter their degree of disability, is able to take part in some portion of a task.”

The result is that residents experience a closer sense of community within the house and that the house itself sends a message to the wider community: that people with disabilities deserve to be recognised for their unique abilities and individuality just like the rest of us, and to live in environments that express and reflect that.