Building a job

Frank's memoirs

Semi-retirement

That is what 1993 turned out to be. But I found it fun creating my own work programme, built out of several opportunities that came my way over the following year or two. And at the same time we decided to shift house.

Oakura was not on our list, but the best match we found was right there, suitable for our teenage family. And in the event we spent ten happy years near the beach, walking the dog (William) and looking after the smallish garden.

Meantime I started work at Ward 23. At first I had people whose dementia was less advanced, and we played a variety of games, and joined in a variety of other activities. As the months went by, however, I found that the dependency levels seemed to get worse, and by the end of my two-year stint all we could manage was balloon tennis. So I played the piano for one of the hours each week, and found the patients joined in singing the old songs I tended to concentrate on. Some were people who never otherwise spoke! This convinced me that there is great value in music therapy.

I was only working 8 hours each week at the ward. My first responsibility was to the children, and to complete the household tasks I needed to do so that Margaret could concentrate on her full-time work. So I reckoned I had about another 12 hours to find more employment.

The first job that came along was the establishment of a Volunteer Centre. The Taranaki Work Trust was in the early stages of a process that would eventually see it end up as Venture Taranaki. The Trujst had been formed as an amalgamation of several work skills programmes which had previously been run by the Salvation Army, and St Andrews Church, with assistance from St Josephs, YMCA, District Council, and the Council of Social Services as well as moral and financial support from several government agencies.

My one-day-a-week job was to start a desk at the Trust office which could recruit, train and allocate volunteers for community groups around North Taranaki. Much of the work was similar to what I had been doing ten years earlier for the Social Welfare Department. Long after I left, after twelve months at the job, the work was taken over by the District Council's Community Development Department, where it still stands.

Friends Plus

During that year, the Taranaki branch of Age Concern was asked by its national body to start a visitors scheme for housebound lonely elderly. They declined the suggestion, and a special trust was set up by some community leaders to do the job: Terry Hickey, my old DSW boss, David Younger, the Community Development man at the Council, and others from community and government organisations like Budget Service, Corrections, and so on.

The Trust advertised for a co-ordinator and I was appointed. The organisation was called Friends Plus - Nga Hoa Apiti and I eventually ran it for nearly ten years. At first I was only working a few hours but when my contract at Ward 23 ran out and my Work Trust job also finished I was able to put more time in to the elderly visiting scheme.

Volunteers were expected to visit their "friend" for an hour a week. They could sit and talk, or take them for a drive, take them shopping, and so on. There were the usual rules about privacy and security. We had an office opposite the Town Clock, where the Len Lye Centre is now. Later we moved into the Community House behind the YMCA Building.

At the same time I acquired several very much part-time other jobs: membership of the Council's Community Development Committee, Manager of the Spotswood College NZQA examinations, and membership of the Regional Ethics Committee. I have reported earlier on these committee activities.

Friends Plus was an enjoyable job overall. At first I was on my own, but after my heart attack in 1996 I was joined for a while by our good friend Patricia Boyd, and later by Jean Bennetts, who eventually took over from me when I decided to retire completely. Meanwhile we had extended our work into what we called the Tuck-in Scheme.

Access Ability, the organisation that looked after people with disabilities for the Health Board, asked us to set up the Tuck-in programme. It involved workers visiting people last thing in the evening, to make sure they had had food and medication, that the house was secure and that they were OK and ready for bed. We employed part-time people to do the work, and set up systems to employ them, like a computer payroll program that calculated their pay and sent the money from our bank account to theirs. Some clients were also visited for similar purposes in the mornings as well.

At the same time we also arranged for some volunteers to take clients shopping on a regular basis in return for travel expenses for their cars.

Friends Plus has now closed down, and its work is done by a variety of other organisations in the community.