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Federal Government Makes a Start on NDIS.
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The Federal Government will take the first steps to establish a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), as recommended by the Productivity Commission and advocated by the disability sector. An NDIS would transform the provision of support services to Australians with significant disability. VATMI congratulates the Government on its endorsement of the vision articulated in the Productivity Commission's final report on Disability Care and Support and looks forward to strong progress in implementing the reforms.
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| Prime Minister Gillard, Ministers Macklin and Shorten and Parliamentary Secretary McLucas released the Productivity Commission's final 1,000-page report on Disability Care and Support. While supporting the Productivity Commission's vision, the Government has yet to endorse its recommendations or commit the additional funding required to implement the NDIS beyond an allocation of $10 million to support a newly-established technical advisory group. It will respond to the detailed recommendations in the report at a later date. |
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In the plan set out in the report the NDIS would be implemented in stages and not fully implemented until 2018-19. Regional launch sites would operate in 2014 to enable the new system to be tested and fine-tuned. In the 2012 Federal Budget National Disability Services (NDS) would like to see forward estimates reflect a funding commitment to support these launch sites. The NDIS must be built on the security of a guaranteed and sustainable funding commitment.
NDS strongly supports the Productivity Commission's conclusion that while full implementation of the NDIS would require an additional $6.5 billion a year, the social and economic returns will outweigh its cost.
In its 18 month inquiry into the disability services system, during which it received over 1,000 submissions, the Productivity Commission found the current system to be fragmented, under-funded, inequitable and providing little choice to people with disability and their carers. The Government accepts that patching up the existing system would be insufficient to fix these problems.
The involvement of State and Territory governments is critical to the successful implementation of an NDIS. The Prime Minister has secured the agreement of COAG in recent days to establish a Council on Disability Reform consisting of Treasurers and Disability Ministers.
The support of the Federal Coalition is also critical and NDS hopes that the Coalition continues to offer support for the establishment of an NDIS.
For the not-for-profit disability services sector the prospect of reform that Minister Jenny Macklin described as "transformational change" is both exciting and daunting. An NDIS will require a much larger workforce appropriately skilled; and gearing up not-for-profit organisations to work effectively in a competitive, individualised funding environment. Meeting these challenges will require investment in building the capacity of the sector if the value of not-for-profit organisations in creating social capital is to be retained and strengthened. This is a matter to which the technical advisory group should give considerable attention.
The Government has said that, consistent with the Productivity Commission's recommendation of a parallel National Injury Insurance Scheme, it will discuss with the States and Territories how to extend catastrophic injury insurance to all people not currently covered, regardless of the cause of their injury.
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Stawell's Gone Fruity! |
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As part of a new healthy living initiative Stawell is leading the way with the introduction of 'Fruity Fridays'. Kate Sage, Site Manager VATMI (Stawell Recycling) has introduced this new initiative to encourage good eating habits for her team.
Each Friday there is an abundance of fresh fruit and nuts to delve into at break time, increasing some peoples daily serves of fruit by up to 100%. Kate has taken up the challenge to find a wide range of different fruits and encourage people to taste fruits that they may have not have come across before.
We are all well aware of the difficulties of maintaining a healthy diet and obtaining our five serves of fruit and vegetables a day. This is a fantastic initiative and everybody is thoroughly enjoying this new Friday tradition. VATMI (Stawell Recycling) has also gained a new member of their team, Ryan Bywaters. Everybody at Stawell and VATMI would like to welcome Ryan to the team!
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It’s a Boy!! |
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On Saturday 23rd June 2011 at 5.32pm Kon Zaharopoulos became father to bouncing baby boy Nicholas Andrew. Nicholas weighed in at 3.62kg and is an impressive 51cm in length. Melissa was overdue by nearly two weeks and was in and out of labour for four days!! Little Nicholas may have kept Melissa and Kon waiting but the proud new father assures us that it was all worth it.
Nicholas has settled into his new family brilliantly and is keeping both Melissa and Kon on their toes. Nicholas is a quiet baby and is sleeping well. Kon would like to extend his thanks to everyone who wished them well and let everybody know that the new edition to his family is settling into a routine beautifully.
Congratulations to Melissa and Kon on the arrival of their beautiful baby boy Nicholas from all at VATMI.
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What is an audit? |
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An audit is an independent review of our procedures, and practices. Audits provide us the opportunity to make improvements to our processes and practices which makes us a better business and a better place to work!
We are at the end of our annual schedule of audits for our current certifications although it is likely that we will still have customer’s wanting to audit our sites in the last few months of the year. Audits over the last couple of months have included: Food Safety / HACCP |
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The Kew site has had their annual HACCP audit on the 4th July and has successfully achieved certification for the next twelve months. Thank you to Edmund Greeff and his team for their input to the audit. Feedback was very positive and the auditor was especially impressed with the appearance of the Warehouse – Well done Louis Dunstan!
As well ,each year we are audited by SAI Global for compliance against the 12 Disability Services Standards. A number of you may be aware that last year we had quite a large audit or a “Triennial audit” which covers all 12 standards. This year we were back to what is termed a “Surveillance audit”. A surveillance audit focuses on a number of the standards which are chosen by the auditors but not the entire 12 standards.
Our auditors SAI Global choose the sites and employee files they wish to review. This year the Kew Corporate function and both the Bendigo Packing and Bendigo Recycling plants were selected for the audit.
As part of the audit process employees were interviewed for feedback on how the twelve disability service standards are applied in the workplace. We would like to thank all the employees who took part in the audit interviews. Your feedback is always valuable and provides a good picture of what the organisation does well and where we can improve.
The audit report and feedback was positive with some areas identified where there are opportunities for further improvement.
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Keon Park is Burning the Midnight Oil! |
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At VATMI (Keon Park Packing), they are burning the midnight oil. Both the Doy Pouch and the Form Fill machines are running 24 hours a day at the moment. This is the first time that the machines have worked continuously and it is due to the huge efforts of Gary Foggie, Ronnie Jeffs, Anthony Kilkenny, Adam Vail and Kylie Conder. All of whom are currently working on a 12 hour shift rotation. Not only are these machines working 24 hours a day and team members working 12 hour shifts, but they are also running weekend shifts to meet demand on the form fill machine.
Adrian Train, Production Manager at Keon Park would like to sincerely thank Garry, Ronnie, Anthony, Adam and Kylie for their incredible efforts and also for their dedication to getting the job done.
Tremendous effort and well done from all at VATMI!!!
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Disability Standard 8: Service Management |
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This month's edition looks at Service Standard 8, Service Management.
Coincidentally, this month VATMI has received its Audit Report from the recent SAI Global Surveillance Audit of Commonwealth Disability Service Standards, including for Service management. The external audit process represents the culmination of service management in relation to VATMI’s quality assurance under the 12 Commonwealth Disability Service Standards.
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Put simply, effective efficient management is essential for optimising outcomes for supported employment. Outcomes may be identified in terms of job durability, job satisfaction, support satisfaction, skill and career development, wage rates and integration in the workforce and community.
So what is management from a supported employment perspective? Management simply refers to all the things an organisation such as VATMI does to establish the outcomes it wants to achieve, and includes the policies and procedures it uses to achieve these outcomes.
VATMI has a clear organisational structure and corporate governance arrangements which promote supported employee confidence in the probity and accountability of management processes. In short, as an organisation, we “walk the talk”.
We have in place rigorous processes for setting business priorities and service improvements and working toward them, as well as an internal audit process supporting continuous improvement (identifying strengths, weaknesses and improvements).
Outcomes from all audits requiring corrective or further action are entered to a Quality Improvement Request (QIR) and scheduled to ensure timely close out. To support the internal audit process and provide VATMI with valuable feedback, we are currently developing a Support Service Satisfaction Survey which will be completed annually.
VATMI policies, procedures and documentation relevant to and referencing Disability Service Standards are established and maintained on the Quality Management System (QMS) available on the VATMI intranet.
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Five Minutes With: Edmund Greeff, Production Manager - Kew |
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| What is the best thing about your job? |
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The daily interaction with employees and the sense of achievement when they have reached a goal that had been set. |
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| How long have you been with VATMI? |
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Just over 4 years |
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Where did you work before VATMI? |
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Cutting room manager for Triumph International in Cape Town South Africa |
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What was your first concert? |
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George Benson (Jazz guitarist) Love my Jazz!! |
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What is the best piece of advice you have been given? |
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You have to give respect in order to earn respect |
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Key Dates |
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| 4th September |
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Fathers Day |
| 8th September |
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International Literacy Day (UNESCO) |
| 15th September |
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International Day of Democracy (UN) |
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