We welcomed new trainees to the Compass family this month and I know everyone is making them and their families, feel comfortable and valued. I have to congratulate the Caloundra parents last term who initiated an afternoon tea to help involve other new families. Rob and the Caloundra team especially had a great time with parents 'lingering longer' and with the trainees enjoying an excellent community experience. On that note you will all have r e c e i ve d t h e m u c h anticipated Farm Open Day invitation for March 13th. Farm staff and trainees are working hard to provide a magic experience, with invitations out to all families across five centres. Please join us, and you will be able to take a quiet moment on 'Norm's bench', recently

Dear Families

The Compass Institute

February 2014

Newsletter

Date Claimers

2nd-6th March 2014 Environment Week 14th April 2014 Term 1 Holidays start 18th April 2014 Good Friday Public Holiday 21st April 2014 Easter Monday Public Holiday 22nd April 2014 Start of Term 2 Compass Commence 25th April 2014 ANZAC day Public Holiday

Compass is Proudly Sponsored by.....

Dear Families

As with us all, events outside ‘work’ or

medical conditions can affect our working

day. To best help our young people, could

families remember to make note in the Com-

munication Book of anything that could af-

fect behaviour or capacity. This way we can

be prepared and if required, adjust the

trainee’s programme accordingly.

DJ McGlynn, a.k.a. The Whirlwind, has swept his way into Compass as a Development Co-ordinator. We are all now in training to keep up with him, so please come out to the Farm and shake his hand on March 13th. He would be delighted to hear about your Compass experiences but especially your ideas and visions! Finally the year cannot begin w i t h o u t m e n t i o n i n g Compass's nomination and David's accolade as regional Citizen of the Year in the Australia Day Awards. The recognition of Compass belongs to you all, families, trainees, staff and again that wonderful man Norm Armstrong. David I believe, like many visionaries, is still unco n vin c ed o f h i s worthiness as a recipient. Thank you David and Wendy, from us all, for giving everyone such a magnificent sense of purpose.

Kind regards

Sally Ryhanen

Service Manager

created by the team as a living memory of a much missed gentleman. David's vision of providing g e n u i n e v o c a t i o n a l experiences for many trainees is being realised. While scheduling has been a minor logistical nightmare, we now have thirty seven young people working in 'real businesses' - Wabi Sabi, Harvest Kitchen, the Farm, Green Thumbs nursery and Caloundra's woodcraft enterprise plus the embryonic development in Rose's ceramics group. Twenty eight of the trainees have reached a level of maturity and flexibility where they can easily work across several locations in one week, performing different tasks and with different trainers at each site. A remarkable achievement. We do thank you for your understanding over the few logistical hiccups that have/may occur in this complex undertaking and we thank you for supporting us in these ventures.

Compass Lawn and Garden

Government assisted domestic services

Page 2

Newsletter

Compass Lawn and garden spent a few hours

cleaning the inside and outside windows for Can

Survive, Nambour. We were surprised with a

lovely morning tea. Graydon, Caitlin and Genna

were able to show off their skills to our volunteer

Student Amanda, who has been out at the farm

the last two weeks sharing her time with us.

Thank you for your help Amanda.

Suncoast Community Care has State funding for under 65 year olds for providing domestic services in order to assist them being independent and living in the community. The criteria they need to meet to be eligible, is to just receive a pension. A full service is 1.5 hours per fortnight of cleaning at a cost of $8.95/hour.

Suncoast usually provide this service with 2 workers going in for 45 minutes per visit and the client has to be at home. Pam Gillespie Suncoast Community Care T: 07 5450 4444

Carer Discount Card To be eligible for a Carer Business Discount Card, you

must: Be a resident of Queensland whose Queensland residential address is registered with Centrelink, and receive the Centrelink

Carer Payment or Carer Allowance

information can be found at

www.qld.gov.au/community/support-for-

carers/carer-card/

We have final figures from our recent Coast Life Homes Charity Race Night which was held at the Sunshine Coast Turf Club on the 31st of January.

We had a total of 216 people there enjoying the night. We would like to personally thank our Race Sponsors again: Coast Life Homes, CSR Bricks and Roofing, Asset Electrical, Navigate Law, Bill Grace, Garry Crick Nambour and the Beerwah Post Office. There were many other businesses that took tables and supported our night and with your support,

Compass can move forward on vital projects. The total funds raised on the night was a generous $10,500 -with $2,100 made on raffles. Thank you from the whole Compass team! You can be reassured to know that 100% of all funds raised go directly to the chosen project – not to administration or similar overheads. We have chosen the C o m p a s s C a l o u n d r a undercover patio project for use of the funds. Our Compass Caloundra team is based in what was formerly the Caloundra

and thanks to the Council we have been offered the long term lease of the facilities. The old awning was in disrepair and had to be removed for safety reasons so a new one will be erected in its place. This will provide much needed shelter for outdoor activities.

Once again, thank you all for

your generous support!

In Memory of Norm The farm trainees and staff have

been very busy constructing this

beautiful bench and tree in memory

of Norm which is now located near

the farm office. Isn’t it lovely? To top

it off, we are now in the process of

getting a plaque made.

Well done everyone.

COMPASS CALENDAR Need to check dates for the holidays

or a special event? Our Annual Planner Calendar

is available 24/7 at www.compassinc.org.au

Exploring the Art of Life

Continuous Improvement Plan

At Compass we are committed to

ongoing service improvement.

If you have a suggestion about how we

can improve our service, please write

your suggestion on one of our

Service Improvement Suggestion

Forms

available from the office, our centres or

our website: www.compassinc.org.au

and we will consider every idea.

I have lived in QLD since August 2008, spending 2.5years of my life on Hamilton Island where my passion for working with behavioural needs and the intellectually disabled begun. This has lead me to where I am today which is currently living on Bribie Island with my daughter Trinity, surrounded by

Hi my name is Christie and I've been working with Compass Institute for the past year. I have embraced the role of Trainer at our Caboolture location over the past three months and I have gained a great deal of satisfaction helping out our Trainees in every possible way I can.

loving family and friends and gorgeous water. (Well not as gorgeous as the Whitsundays!) :) I looked forward to many more challenges within Compass and meeting many more Trainees along the way! All the best in 2014 and remember

"Nothing is impossible!".

Welcome DJ to the team as Development Coordinator

Welcome Christie-Lee to the team as Support Trainer

Welcome Christine to the

team as Support trainer

Page 3

February 2014

Everyone wants to be valued for what they do.

Employment for people with moderate levels of disability

can be a real challenge… and it’s a challenge that

Compass has addressed.

Exploring the Art of Life

My name is Christine Hinson and I currently work at Compass Caloundra in the CEU1 section. I have experience in aged care and disability care. My background is Military and I enjoyed a long career in the Army. My aim is to work with and improve the life skills and quality of independence for our trainees.

Advocacy

Remember that you are able to bring along an advocate

or support person to any meeting that you have with

Compass.

An advocate is someone who is there to support you or

represent you and your interests in circumstances where

you feel that this additional support is required.

Please ask us if you need more information or assistance

with organising for an advocate.

I just wanted to introduce myself. I am DJ McGlynn and I have just taken on the role of Development Coordinator here at the Compass Institute. My role primarily involves taking care of fundraising and events, Corporate Partnerships, developing the brand of Compass in the community and also a n y t h i n g r e v e n u e generating. I have a strong background in business with Store Management experience

with Amart Sports, Rebel Sport and also Anaconda. Marketing and sales with Hot 91.1/Zinc 96.1FM and Coca Cola. I hope to bring this wealth of experience and generate recognition for the Compass Institute being the number one service provider on the Sunshine Coast for young people with a disability. I will be hoping to touch base with you all from month to month, to keep you informed of what is happening in and around

the Compass Institute and to also pass on any information in regards to outside activities that may be of value to you as a family unit. If you have any ideas, comments or questions, please feel free to contact me at any time and I will be only too happy to reply. My email dj@compassinc.org.au Thanking you all once again and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

for our organisation and the people it assists. DJ has a degree in Business and most recently worked for our great sponsor, 91.1 Hot FM. He has also worked for Rebel Sports and Coca Cola so he has lots of experience and contacts. Most importantly, DJ and his wife have a son with a disability who is attend-ing Currimundi Special School, so he brings both compassion and pas-sion to his role. I’m sure you will all hear from and meet him in the near future. Please support him in his work in any way you can in the knowledge that his success brings direct benefits to your sons and daughters lives. Thank you… I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for the lovely Christmas cards and positive feedback about Compass that came from so many families late last year! It was embarrassing to be told so many nice things… but I can’t tell you how much it meant to me. We remain willing to learn and improve on what we do and I hope it shows. Ac c o l a d e s … S p e a k in g o f embarrassment, as I’m sure you all know now, I was honoured to be nominated for 2014 Sunshine Coast Citizen of the Year… and then stunned to be the recipient of the award. On the way to the ceremony I was asked if I’d prepared a speech and nonchalantly replied that I was sure that wouldn’t be an issue. Whoops! Between us, I’m half expecting a knock on the door and “I’m sorry – we meant that to go to someone else”. Compass was also nominated in the Community Organisation category and that was one I thought we might have a chance with. Still, it’s an honour just to be thought highly enough of that someone would nominate us… and we received a nice certificate. Maybe next year… ? Housing Solutions… We received a negative response to our initial application last year under the Eld-erly Parent & Carer Trial however have decided to pursue this further. To date I have had a meeting with the Attorney General who has as-sisted us to meet with the Minister’s office to discuss our application fur-ther. He has also requested a

I hope you all had a wonderful time with family and friends over the Christmas period… and are feeling just a little refreshed at least as we kick off 2014. This is looking like (another) big year for Compass. Welcome to the new trainees and families. We look forward to getting to know you all better as the year progresses. The centre in Gympie is undergoing some renovations that will improve the amenity there and we are looking forward to new enrol-ments from that community. I under-stand that facilities aren’t the most important thing – we all appreciate it’s the model of further education & training supported by great staff and real learning programmes that makes the difference – but I know we also agree that people with dis-abilities deserve good facilities and resources. After all, these are seen as a right for non-disabled students in any mainstream further education system. As you also know govern-ment is loath to fund facilities for day services like Compass and we are left to our own devices. As an exam-ple, I recently took a Coordinator from another service on a tour of the Farm and his first question was “Who gave this property to you?” He was really surprised to hear that not only were we buying it but that we were also generating income from it towards the cost of the purchase as well as paying the young people training and working there. We can be very proud of that. New Staff Member… One of the secrets to that success has been the support of the community and the corporate sector for Compass and the work it does. We have really put our name out there and it has at-tracted many generous people and companies who have supported us with donations, goods and services, discounts, attendance at events and general fundraising towards specific projects or resources. This year I’m very happy to confirm that we are investing in this area that has brought us and the people we assist so much benefit. Mr Daniel (DJ) McGlynn has come on staff to man-age and grow this area to ensure that in the future we really tap into the great vein of support that exists

meeting for us with the Deputy Premier, Tim Nicholls, to discuss the issue which he knows to be of inter-est to the state government. I’ll keep you all informed regards the progress of these talks. I should mention that the developer of the units and shopping centre has let me know that two apartments in the development will have disabled ac-cess. With their proximity to shops, public transport and Compass they may also be of some interest to some of you Events… Our annual Gala Race Night is on this Friday at the Sunshine Coast Turf Club and it is looking like a great success with some 220 people attending. I want to take a moment to thank our major Sponsors – Russel and Jane Kay from Coast Life Homes. They have supported Compass events for several years now and their generosity has been amazing. At a time when the building industry has been going through the doldrums on the Coast, Russel and Jane have shown no hesitation in continuing their charitable work with us. Jane also volunteers as a committee member organising the Champagne Diamond event scheduled for May this year. The way to reward them is to tell people about them and for that I need your help. Coastlife Hom es have m any yea rs ’ experience in delivering quality and affordable homes and I’d like them to be the first call you make when you or anyone you know talks about a new home. You’ve got nothing to lose and make sure you mention Compass when you talk to them. C h e c k t h e m o u t o n www.coastlifehomes.com.au or call 1300 307 004. A big thank you also to the other race sponsors, Darcy Tyrell for his efforts in filling 4 tables and all those attending for their sup-port. I look forward to seeing you all over the next few months and wish you

the very best for 2014.

David

Dear Parents and Friends

Exploring the Art of Life