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Our Organisation |
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Our organisation was first established at Balnarring in 1972 under the name Kindilan School Society. This name was changed to
Kindilan Society in 1988 in recognition of the gradual change from a school based service to an adult service.
The name ‘focus’ INDIVIDUALISED SUPPORT SERVICES was adopted in 2006 as a registered business name to cover our
client service operations of Kindilan Society, which is a publicly registered ‘not for profit’ company Limited by Guarantee.
Originally, the organisation operated in accordance with the Curative Education principles of Rudolph Steiner. The word ‘Kindilan’ means “place of joy”. A separation from the ‘Steiner’ movement in 1975, resulted in an eventual relocation to a new site in Red Hill in 1979. Since that time, we have developed into a much larger and more diverse organisation focusing on meeting the needs of adults who experience a variety of disabilities. The membership of the company is predominantly drawn from the families and friends of our client group, however there are no barriers to prevent other interested community members from applying for membership. Fundamental to our services is an ethos that supports the importance of family members in the lives of the people to whom we provide support. Our services have traditionally been provided primarily within the boundaries of the Mornington Peninsula and surrounding areas, but there are now exceptions to this general guideline as new service demands and opportunities arise. Kindilan Society is an approved Public Benevolent Institution with full charitable status. We are not affiliated with any other organisation. We believe that our history clearly demonstrates that we are committed to the ongoing development and enhancement of our services in a manner that is consistent with the changing expectations of government and community, but in particular, those members of the community who have a disability. In the early years to 1979, our service consisted of a residential school for a small number of children who had an intellectual disability. The increasing age profile of our residents, resulted in the ultimate redevelopment of the school service to become an Adult Training Support Service (ATSS). Concurrent expansion of our accommodation services occurred in recognition of the growing level of unmet demand for residential places. The Society progressively developed additional homes situated throughout the Mornington Peninsula community, as well as providing additional places on the Red Hill site. |
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The original ATSS has undergone considerable expansion and change over the years. It now operates from bases in
Red Hill and Dromana, but it is increasingly moving towards a more flexible model of community support and
individualised programs.
Significant growth has also characterised our accommodation services which have expanded to include a range of outreach and respite services offering support withiin the home and within the community. These newly developing services provide individualised staff support to enable people who have a disability and their carers to enjoy an enhanced quality of life. Our support activities and programs are focused on meeting individual needs and aspirations and it is therefore logical that our ‘facility based’ services are diminishing in favour of utilising all that is typically available within our community. We are committed to fostering the rights of the people whom we support to participate fully in a truly inclusive community. In 2005, we completed an organisational and management re-structure so as to more effectively and efficiently meet the contemporary demands of our expanding service ‘profile’, as well as to better ‘position’ ourselves to address the anticipated shifts in funding and service delivery systems. Up until this time, our operations have been structured in the more traditional manner of separating accommodation services and ‘day training’ services (ATSS). Such a structure has typically been prescibed by the manner in which services have been funded by Government and the consequent requirement for organisations to separately acquit these funds. We now believe that this is no longer the most appropriate way to provide a truly flexible and wholistic service based on meeting individual aspirations and needs. We are now working towards establishing a ‘seamless’ provision of support services within the framework of a‘person centred’ approach. In order to achieve this goal, we have created a new senior role of Manager-Client Support with a view to unifying the previously separate service structures into a ‘seamless whole’ that is more able to meet the needs and aspirations of the people who seek our services. We expect that the new structure will ultimately enable more flexible use of all resources, particularly staff resources. The restructured senior management group is supported by an enhanced second level of management in the form of Co-ordinators of designated functional areas, such as Community Support, Outreach/Respite and geographic groupings of residences. The organisational restructure has also included the establishment of a new functional role in the area of client health. We view this area as one in which there is currently a paucity of services (and service planning) within the community, and this creates an opportunity to develop services to address a significant unmet need in the fields of primary health and health promotion. |
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The adoption of our new ‘business’ name, (‘focus’ INDIVIDUALISED SUPPORT SERVICES ) is intended to more accurately
reflect the progressive shift in the direction of our services. The new service direction is characterised
by a focus on the needs and aspirations of each person, as well as on making community connections and building
relationships, to promote quality of life in a community that is genuinely inclusive.
For each person, the services are about Myself, My Dreams, My World, and for this reason, the central word ‘focus’ has been combined with the organisation’s mission statement ‘living the life I want’ to produce its new logo:
The following anagram further represents the direction we have chosen for our services:
In adopting a new service name and logo, some links to the important history of the organisation have been retained. For example, the letter “O” in the word focus, incorporates the original Kindilan Society logo, and this ensures that there is a permanent connection of the new organisational direction with the thirty five year evolution of Kindilan Society. Our current strategic plan clearly establishes the principles that will guide our services into the future. These principles are outlined in other sections of this web-site and may be accessed from the main ‘menu’ on our ‘Home Page’. |
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