Survey Response - Summer 2015

Survey Response

QF29 - Survey Response.docx Latest revision date: 10/02/2015 Page 1 of 4

SURVEY RESPONSE QF - 29

Survey: Summer 2015 School Holiday Program

Survey Period: 02/02/2015 – 11/02/2015

Introduction: In December 2014 & January 2015 Wild Rumpus Community Services facilitated a school holiday program for children and young people with additional needs. This program spanned a 5-week period, and supported 106 participants over 44 programs. An online survey was offered to families to complete to provide feedback. This is the response to the survey from service Director James Asciak. How easy was it to access the Wild Rumpus School Holiday Program? 92.6% - SO EASY! 7.4% - Fairly easy 0% - A couple of small issues, nothing major 0% - One or two issues 0% - It was difficult Did you feel there was enough information provided about our School Holiday Program? 74.1% - I sure did! Very detailed 25.9% - Somewhat detailed 0% - No, not detailed enough How did you find our range of planned activities? 70.4% - Outstanding 29.6% - Very good 0% - Fair 0% - Development needed Did you find anything missing from our program that you would suggest we include for next time or can you suggest how Wild Rumpus might improve our future School Holiday Programs? Longer hours enabling parents to work

We may investigate the option of offering ‘work-friendly hours’ so parents are able to work. This is currently difficult due to having small facilities.

Written feedback

Offering written feedback would cost Wild Rumpus a considerable amount, which we would need to charge to participant’s NDIS funding. Instead we will train staff to offer better verbal handovers at the end of the program.

Survey Response


Provide Life-Skills Programs

Wild Rumpus provide a range of life-skills programs during the term, including our ‘ForwardLiving’ program. We urge families to enrol in these programs if looking for more independent living skill opportunities.

Long travel-time to Melbourne

We understand travelling to Melbourne can be an exhausting experience for some of our participants. We feel we offer a balanced range of programs, both in Geelong and elsewhere. Everyone has different needs and is looking for different kinds of activities/experiences. Ultimately if you feel your child gets tired travelling to Melbourne be mindful of this when selecting activities.

Same mobile number for program contact

Next school holiday program will be led by Simon Evans, who will be the primary contact for the school holiday program. He will be able to get messages to the right program group.

Parents receiving a text if group is longer than 15-minutes late

This will be a practice we plan to adopt. Apologies if families were waiting longer than 15mins after the details drop-off time and not contacted.

More surfing programs

We agree that this was an awesome program – and would like to explore more of this in the future.

Providing Camps in school holiday periods

Where we can this would be great – but we can’t extend ourselves to the point where we are placing children at risk.

Better familiarity of program staff

We understand that our ongoing success is partly dependent on structuring our programs in a way that promotes a quality service. We agree that staff being familiar with participants and their families is an important element of this. Next school holiday period we plan to have separate teams of 6-8 staff working with each age group. This way families only need to be familiar with roughly 6-8 staff instead of the entire team. We may introduce cafe catch-ups between parents and employees throughout the year.

Did you find the Wild Rumpus Staff to be organized and well prepared for the activities? 88.9% - Very much so 7.4% - Generally organized and well prepared 0% - A bit patchy 3.7% - I had a couple of concerns 0% - Completely disorganized

Survey Response


What is one thing you think the Wild Rumpus Staff do well? • Treat the kids like normal kids • Caring, fun, welcoming and relatable • Happy staff changed programs dependent on the weather • Remembered the kids names and actively discussed their interests • Accommodating individual needs, and take time with them on a personal level • Have a positive attitude and are well liked by the kids • Enthusiasm – you could tell staff wanted to be there • Spoke to them like normal kids – didn’t dumb things down for them What is one thing you can suggest Wild Rumpus Staff do differently? Introduce themselves when arriving to program

We apologise someone felt this did not occur and will address this issue immediately. We agree that some of our newer staff are still learning what is a complex role, and we are providing opportunities and encouragement to develop their skills.

Staff could wear ID lanyards

We are currently investigating employee uniforms – due to the size and demanding nature of putting on programs this has not been of high priority. We agree this would make program staff more visible.

Return phone calls

At Wild Rumpus we reinvest everything we have back into our programs. We are a poor service and can’t afford back-of-house services such as admin staff to answer phones. The upside of this is that we are able to provide a vast amount of our programs at no additional cost to families. No other additional needs school holiday programs are so affordable for families – while receiving access to such expensive activities.

Keep adding staff so participants get allocated more program days

We need to grow in a measured way to ensure we retain quality. If we grow too quickly mistakes will be made and children will be placed at risk. This means families can expect to receive a limited service which is based on demand for our programs. We currently run Geelong’s biggest additional needs school holiday program with an incredibly small team who work tirelessly to pull it together.

A meeting point in Geelong’s northern suburbs

Wild Rumpus first was established in Ocean Grove, and even though we are now primarily based in Geelong, we have made a commitment to provide service to the Bellarine. Our current 2 pick-up points place us under enormous logistical complexity. We do not intend to establish a third meeting point in the northern suburbs. Perhaps another disability service based in the northern suburbs is in a better position to provide this.

Survey Response


What did you enjoy most about your child's involvement with the Wild Rumpus School Holiday Program - Summer 2014/2015? • A good range and choice of activities • A great opportunity to hang out with friends and meet new ones • Comforting knowing they are in a safe environment and having fun • That staff actively involved the kids in the program • Great having full-day programs – other services run for only a few hours • Good that most started a little later meaning we could sleep in • The fact they were happy and exhausted at the end of the day made home life

easier • Growing confidence and improved social skills • Gnarlies, Adventure Park, The Illusionist • A unique opportunity to get out into the community and make friends What did you enjoy least about your child's involvement with the Wild Rumpus School Holiday Program - Summer 2014/2015? • Not being able to book into enough programs (This was a vast majority of the

responses) • That is ended • Recommending the program to other families means my child will get less

program days • Travelling to pick-up/drop-off points How likely are you to recommend the Wild Rumpus School Holiday Programs to your friends and/or family? 92.6% - Highly likely - Shouting it from the rooftops! 7.4% - Likely 0% - Somewhat likely - needs a few tweaks first 0% - Not likely at all How would you rate overall the Wild Rumpus School Holiday Program - Summer 2014/2015? 88.9% - One of the best (maybe even THE best!) 11.1% - Better than most 0% - Better than some 0% - Not as good as others Regards,

James Asciak Director Wild Rumpus Community Services

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Survey Response - Summer 2015