Community Engagement in Elderly Care: Reflections from a Placement at Catholic Health Care

Community Report 1
COMMUNITY REPORT
By [Name]
Course
Professor’s Name
Institution
Location of Institution
Date

Community Report 2
Introduction
Community engagement is a general term for people who unite to form interest groups
(Durey et al., 2016). Community engagement intends to tackle a problem facing a specific group
of individuals in the community. The engagement platforms improve the health and well-being
of the targeted people. Partnership and collaboration are critical elements of community
engagement as they influence systems and mobilize resources towards proper service delivery to
the vulnerable (Hurley et al., 2016). Recent research has also shown that the practice improves
both health research and promotion. Community engagement tackles the economic and social
determinants of health. This report will reflect on my community engagement placement at the
Catholic health care. It will focus on the audience that I served which are the aged people with
Dementia, mental health patients, and palliative care. The paper will also discuss the purpose,
alignment, recommendation, and reflection on the practice.
The Customer
I assisted the Catholic healthcare staff to serve in the aged care and vulnerable old
citizens. The audience falls into three categories including short-term respite care, palliative care,
and dementia-specific care. Respite care involves assisting the carers of the elderly and sick
individuals to look after the vulnerable groups (Gresham, Heffernan, and Brodaty, 2018). I
supported the elderly individuals by cooking their favorite foods and preparing their bedroom
before sleeping time. I also kept them company by spending time with them.
The Catholic healthcare based in Surry Hills, Sidney also provides dementia care for the
affected individuals. Dementia is a mental disorder that impairs the reasoning capacity of
individuals and also leads to short and long-term memory loss (Bush, Fink, and Lei, 2016). I
helped the caregivers at the health facility to design the rooms in favor of the patients.

Community Report 3
Additionally, I fitted calendars in those rooms to remind the dementia patients about upcoming
events and community functions.
Apart from respite, and dementia care, I participated in offering palliative care to elderly
individuals. Palliative care involves attending to individuals with life-limiting complications like
heart failure, and chronic kidney disease. I comforted and supported the patients with end-of-life
complications. I advised the friends and family members of the patients to accept the conditions
of the patients and show compassion towards them. Furthermore, I talked to the patients to meet
their spiritual, emotional, and physical needs.
The Purpose
The organization provides a variety of resources and support to elderly individuals.
Therefore, the caregivers address a majority of customer needs like spiritual and emotional
necessities. However, the facility fails to send a few requirements of the clients. Firstly, the
facility provides accommodation and support for every senior citizen. Secondly, proper nutrition
is available to improve the health and wellbeing of the patients. Relevant meals reduce the
chances of malnutrition complication to the clients in the facility (Porter, Haines, and Truby,
2017).
The needs addressed by the organization include the spiritual, emotional, and physical
requirements of the patients, their friends, and family members. The palliative care unit offers to
counsel to the relations of individuals having the chronic complications. The dementia
department has designed programs that assist the patients to retain their memory. Some of the
remedies include a physical exercise session and ringing bells to remind patients about certain
activities (Dewing, and Dijk, 2016). The organization meets the above needs to ensure a
comfortable stay for elderly clients.