“We have a resident here, he’s been here a few years now and he’d been living in a boarding house for a long time. He didn’t have his own room, or bathroom. When he first came here and when saw his room, with its own bathroom, he started crying.
“He had stopped talking when living in that boarding house and went through a dark and difficult time. When he came here he didn’t speak, he didn’t write, he didn’t do a lot of things. Within six months he was writing us letters, writing us stories. We got him one of those mindfulness colouring books and now he does pictures for everyone. He’s much more social, goes on outings and helps to run some of the activities, too.”
Kristen Grainger has worked in aged care for 20 years. For the past 12 years she’s worked at Catholic Healthcare’s Charles O’Neill Hostel in the New South Wales coastal city of Newcastle.
She has been the residential manager for the past 10 years and has overseen the establishment of the “A Safe Place to Call Home” program, which creates a safe residential environment for people with mental health conditions that also require residential care.
Top Comments
Blessings to you Kristen and all your staff.
You are amazing people - thankyou for the work you are doing xx
What an inspiration you and your team are, Kristen .... I only wish there were more programs like this around the country ... since they closed down Sydney's main psychiatric units and the government sold off the land, those who were previously cared for in this type of facility were tossed out into boarding houses where they often lived in squalor and were not supervised taking their own medications. My late aunty who suffered with schizophrenia most of her life, was forced to take this path and had to jump in front of a train and lose both her arms (because the voices told her to) before she was taken into care where she fortunately lived the last few years of her life safe and content. She even found love. I am to understand that so many people like my late aunty, who should have been in psychiatric care, were placed in boarding houses where they ceased taking their much needed medication and ended up committing a criminal misdemeanour and found themselves in prison, rather than the psychiatric care that should have been theirs. Sadly, for some, this was a safer alternative than the street.