For reablement approaches to be successfully integrated into aged care, it is important that care workers understand the purpose and benefits of reablement and have easy access to the equipment they require. Services may need to consider the leadership and culture of their organisation and ways in which they can empower the workforce to support reablement. This may take the form of education and supporting the workforce to adapt to changes. To support effective reablement in aged care , considering the following points:
- Leadership and culture of the organisation- To ensure that aged care supports can re-able older people, a culture of continuous improvement where ongoing learning and innovation are embedded in the organisation is necessary.
- Empowerment and education of the workforce- Staff training in the development and delivery of a reablement approach is integral to the success of such an approach and works to empower aged care workers delivering client-centred care. [1] Training is not only valuable to teach the principles and value of reablement but also reinforces independence-based practice [1] and acts to ensure that care workers can assist with individualised goal setting and support participation in meaningful activities. A shared vision by the multi-disciplinary workforce empowers the team to deliver reablement to support change.
- Adapting to change- To adopt reablement in practice, all care workers and the organisation that supports them need to adopt behaviours that are consistent with the reablement principles. This requires staff to ‘do with, rather than do for’ their clients. [1]
- Easy access to appropriate equipment- A well-equipped workforce plays a vital role in ensuring the success of reablement. To deliver high quality care, specific to the clients’ needs, the workforce needs quick and easy access to equipment that supports older people to carry out activities independently. Such equipment might assist with safety management, rehabilitation techniques, continuous learning or help to provide emotional support.
To support you to consider how to equip the aged care workforce to deliver reablement, the following resources might be useful:
- A wellness and reablement approach - A cultural change
- Wellness and reablement: A summary of consultations across the home care sector
- Wellness and reablement in practice: A training and learning guide
Want to know more?
If you require more information on the reablement approach and how to implement it in aged care:
- Visit our evidence themes on Rehabilitation, reablement, and restorative care
- Browse the Rehabilitation, reablement and restorative care resources.
- Look for research evidence within the PubMed database by using one of the PubMed searches provided here. PubMed contains brief information (‘citations’) on millions of research studies. It can therefore be challenging to search. Our librarian has made finding highly relevant information on this topic as simple as a click of a button. Click on All to see everything in the database on the topic or choose Full text to view only articles immediately available to you free of charge in full text.