Sally Paulin

Previous research on Volunteering in aged care settings in Western Australia: Good practice during covid-19 and beyond (Paull & Paulin 2022) and The Jacaranda Project (Paull & Paulin 2020) highlighted several issues which merited further investigation. In addition, the Royal Commission on Aged Care Quality and Safety (CoA, 2021) made many recommendations to improve aged care provision in Australia including recognition of the importance of the contribution of volunteers in addressing social isolation and assistance with client activities in age care settings.

This report outlines a project involving a series of interviews and research workshops (held in person and online) over several months in 2023 and 2024 by the Project Team from Murdoch University. The project was designed to develop an understanding of the role of those who managed or coordinated volunteer activity in residential dementia care settings in Western Australia.

The outcomes of this research are set out in the following report.

Key findings in relation to managing volunteering in dementia care settings in Western Australia in 2023/24 are as follows:

Communications: Language used is important. In the interests of clarity for this report, we refer to volunteers/visitors, residents/clients and volunteer managers.

Complexity: There are several levels of cognitive impairment/dementia which require different levels of approach in managing volunteers in aged care settings.

Compliance: Government policy now requires aged care providers to have a volunteer program and for those volunteers to be well trained.

Organisational Policies: Ongoing recognition and support for volunteer managers and volunteer programs is vital.

Managing at a distance: Volunteer managers often manage at a distance from the site where volunteering takes place, adding a layer of complexity for both volunteers and managers.

First Language: Learning how to communicate with first language speakers is important and resources to assist such as advice on talking to someone with dementia which may be useful for volunteer involving organisations to offer to their volunteers in dementia care settings.

Training: For both volunteer managers and volunteers. The nature and volume of training is a delicate balance, not only to identify how much is enough, but also to meet compliance and motivational needs.

In this chapter, we seek to advance the notion that the evolution of ‘Self’, organisational design and leadership thinking and an Eco-centric versus Ego-centric worldview—are a precondition for true sustainability and survival for organisations and interdependent local and global ecosystems in 2017 and beyond. We develop this position with reference to Historical, Sociological, Literary and Philosophical precedents, leading-edge organisational and leadership theory, topical reports on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) global standards, practices and metrics, and our own reflective practice narratives. This rich body of knowledge and expertise is used to illustrate the potential costs of the contested relationship between humans and nature from classical times into the current digital era. We argue that to truly understand human, organisational and broader ecosystems dynamics in a complex and emerging environment, non-linear interpretive methodologies are required versus traditional positivist empirical investigations. Based on this approach and extensive conversations with other experienced academic researchers, teachers, and consultants actively involved in organisational change and design, stakeholder and community engagement, we conclude that even the most progressive Corporate Social Responsibility and corporate social integration organising and leadership models such as Conscious Capitalism and Shared Value are trapped in the Ego-centric self-serving worldview. By contrast we explore the potential of the Eco-centric worldview and allied organisational design and reward practices based on—shared values, self-transcending purpose, personal insight, and creative use of digital technologies for collaboration, problem-solving, and knowledge sharing in high trust social networks. Having explored how some of these principles can be applied within leading-edge, radical leadership and organisational design frameworks such as—Theory U and Teal organisations, we revisit the notion of the digital double-edged sword. This represents massive, previously unimaginable power and agency which human beings can exercise through interconnected digital networks for better or for worse. We argue that ‘for better’ translates as a unique opportunity to change the way that we lead and design organisations and balance risk and opportunity for humankind, natural systems, and the planet.

Homeless Connect, held annually in several Australian cities and fashioned along the lines of similar days in cities such as San Francisco, has now been conducted in Perth for a number of years. As the name suggests, Homeless Connect is designed to reconnect homeless guests, as well as those at risk of homelessness, with government, non-profit and business services, personal care services and social opportunities. The research question being addressed in this paper is: How can the strategies of Homeless Connect impact on the personal agency of those who attend on the day? The findings are based on feedback from guests, service providers and volunteers who contributed to Homeless Connect Perth 2011. The one-stop services approach, as well as affording opportunities for social connection for homeless guests, is critiqued in the context of providing an opportunity to address two of the components of personal agency: knowledge and activation. We propose a model which depicts the contribution of volunteers, organisers and service providers to homeless guests' personal agency via connections and reconnections.

The bottom of the pyramid (BoP) approach popularised Prahalad (2004) as well as other writers such as Hart (2005) and London (2007), calls for the engagement of business with the bottom segment of the global income pyramid, and has attracted considerable attention and debate. The BoP lens is applied chiefly to communities experiencing ‘extreme poverty’ in low income countries with little reference to the growing number of people living in ‘relative poverty’ in high income countries. For the purpose of stimulating academic debate this paper seeks to explore the role of the so-called fourth sector, a domain for hybrid business ventures of social (and, in the case of this paper, Indigenous) entrepreneurs, at what we refer to as ‘the bottom at the top of the income pyramid’ in Australia. Using examples of Indigenous and social entrepreneurship within disadvantaged communities, we seek to highlight the scope for fourth sector enterprises at the lower end of the income spectrum within developed countries. It is suggested that the business models found within the fourth sector offer promising, alternative approaches for addressing the economic as well as social and cultural needs of those living on the fringes of today’s increasingly fragmented high-income societies.

WISALTS Inc. is one of the oldest Environmental Community Organisations (ECOs) active in Western Australia (WA). The organisation has been tackling the issue of land degradation in the agricultural areas since 1978. However, declining membership as well as the departure of key leaders has cast uncertainty over its future. It has been argued that the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach has the potential to induce sustainable transformative change within organisations. Grounded in the theory of social constructionism, AI is a different approach to organisational development; one that focuses on past strengths and successes rather than the weaknesses and failures. In this context, this paper discusses the principles and processes of AI and explores its use in supporting a lifespan change process within WISALTS Inc., as a case study.