FROM OUR CEO MEMBER &

FROM OUR CEO MEMBER & CLIENT SERVICES It is refreshing to write this In January, we called for Our third area of change is our Welcome to the Summer Edition We thank James Beckett and the I would like to extend my sincere message as we start the new expressions of interest for the Board. I'm delighted to welcome of our Member & Client Services Physiotherapy Team, as well as congratulations to our inaugural year with sunshine and hope. In Client Advisory and Co-Design three new directors. Bulletin. I hope you all had a lovely Brendan O'Leary and the Facilities Difference Maker Award winners, January last year we were still a state in total lockdown and closed borders! It's almost hard to believe. I sense we are all starting this year with a fresh perspective and a renewed approach. Tough times always change us, and hopefully we can use our learnings to review how we do things and find ways to serve you better. MSWA has many new initiatives starting this year linked to our purpose; Empowering People with Neurological conditions to live their best lives, which we are very excited about. The first is to step up our collaboration and co-design with Clients and people with direct lived experience of a neurological condition. Gone are the days when we do things ‘for and to’ the people we exist to support – we need to truly listen, engage and do things ‘with’ our Clients and the broader ‘ecosystem’ we work within. Committee and we have been overwhelmed by the response from Clients. Expressions of interest are now closed and we will announce our full committee shortly. I am so passionate about this project, its potential to make us see things differently and pave the way to make a greater impact. In line with our Client centred focus, we launched our inaugural Difference Maker of the Year award. We asked Clients to nominate staff members who truly make a difference to their lives and were so pleased to be inundated with 110 nominations in the first year. Our winners (yes plural, we couldn’t choose between them!) were Physiotherapist Suzanne Rice from Albany and Care Support Worker Joanne Ingham from the Metro Lower South team. You can read all about these special women on pages 10 to 13. Our second area of renewal is to update and contemporise our Constitution to reflect the nature of what we do now, taking into account the size and complexity / John Patmore joins us as a member living with MS, who brings incredible experience and skills in IT as we focus on new digital opportunities and address cyber risks in this era. / Kathryn (Kate) Gatti joins with invaluable skills and experience in clinical governance and service quality. We have long needed this skill set on the Board. / Benjamin Jardine brings extensive experience in the NDIS funding and management space, including accommodation support. Lastly, we look ahead to our Albany facility celebrating its first year of operation in April and hopefully the commencement of two new exciting developments in Shenton Park and Golden Bay. Another key focus of 2023 will be to set our strategy around where to expand our High-Support Accommodation, Respite and services support to better meet the needs of West Australians with neurological conditions. festive break and a wonderful start to 2023. It was great to end last year with our wonderful Client and Volunteers Christmas Party – what a fabulous party with an impressive turnout. The delicious meal and marvellous entertainment from our very own talent pool at MSWA was amazing, along with music played by Fenton Oldmeadow and the harmonious singing from the Bletchley Park Primary School Choir. A big thanks to everyone who worked in front and behind the scenes, including our friends at QBE who lent us a team of volunteers, you all made the day a success. The start to 2023 was highlighted by the official opening of our upgraded gym space at MSWA Wilson. On 11 January we held a morning tea to open the gym following the wonderful work undertaken to accomplish more space and provide new gym equipment for our Clients to utilise. Team for delivering the project over the Christmas break. We are very grateful to our supporters who donated an incredible ,000 at last year’s MSWA Dinner Auction, your generosity enabled us to make these changes which will expand our services. A big thank you for your incredible impact. See the pictures on We have now implemented our new Client Management System. We have been busy learning new processes and training our teams on the new technology. As such, you may have noticed a few changes, including our Support Workers using the new scheduling app. As with anything new, it takes a bit of time to get used to. As we settle the systems in, we can start to gain the benefits and improvements. As we start fresh for 2023, we can commence our next projects. The focus on our horizon is to begin building our new service delivery model to further provide person-centred care. I am looking forward to building on the information and insights we Suzanne Rice and Joanne Ingham, two incredible professionals recognised by our Clients for their compassion, expertise and dedication. You are a credit to our organisation and MSWA is lucky to have you. It was heartening to see the outpour of gratitude for our staff and we look forward to seeing the awards grow bigger and better in 2023. As we are now in the midst of summer, we have provided some useful tips on keeping cool during hot nights on and staying hydrated (and why it is so important) on As always, your feedback is important to us. If you have anything you would like to share, please contact us at feedback@mswa.org.au. Stay safe and enjoy the summertime. NICOLA WASHINGTON CHIEF CLIENT OPERATIONS OFFICER of our organisation. We will be sending out further information and invitations to discussion sessions on this topic in the next few months. All of these changes will help us to do what we exist to do – to truly make a positive difference in the lives of the people we support. I look forward to working with you and learning from you as we gathered towards the end of last year to inform our service model. We will be asking for your feedback and input as we pilot new ideas, to ensure we continue to provide the services and supports you need with added improvements. forge ahead to do an even better job this year. MELANIE KIELY CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Smiles all around at the Client and Volunteer Christmas Party. 4 5