Thank you for being a part of the Five Good Friends family. It is an honour to be providing you help and support. Our thoughts are with all of our Members, Helpers, and Five Good Friends workers at this time. The COVID-19 pandemic is very challenging for all of us and we will continue working hard to maintain your services and the safety and wellbeing of everyone.

We wanted to take the opportunity to provide an update on how Five Good Friends continues to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccinations.

COVID-19 webinar with Dr Paul Griffin As COVID-19 and the Delta variant continues to force rolling lockdowns across Australia, bringing accompanying calls to get tested and vaccinate, understanding the virus and health guidelines has never been more important. We were privileged to have Infectious Disease Physician and Microbiologist Dr Paul Griffin join us at Five Good Friends HQ for a conversation with CEO, Simon Lockyer to provide clear, concise, and objective information about COVID-19.

The webinar is located here. We encourage you to have a look and share with those who you feel it may help and support their understanding of the COVID-19 virus.

Vaccination of workers In line with Commonwealth and State health departments and expert advice we strongly encourage vaccination. We are collecting confirmation of vaccination status from our workforce and also reporting this to the Commonwealth government. We have successfully met mandated Helper vaccination requirements for parts of NSW to ensure our services have continued.

We now have a COVID-19 Vaccination 2021 verification in the FGF App, alongside the Flu Vaccination verification. With this you can see the vaccination status of each of your primary Helpers.

We are strongly encouraging Helpers to get vaccinated. All Helpers have been provided with a letter to support their eligibility for vaccination. We are assisting Helpers to organise time off to attend vaccination appointments. We continue to focus on COVID-19 education for Helpers and regularly provide clear, credible and objective information from peak health, scientific and Government bodies.

We have implemented an ongoing program to make direct contact with all Helpers to check on their wellbeing, provide support in the form of advice and ensure they have supplied Five Good Friends with copies of their record of vaccination.

Our strong belief is that supporting vaccination is the most important thing we can do for our Helpers, Members, staff and community, and we will continue to work very hard in this area.

Assistance with vaccination

There are a variety of ways you can access the vaccine for COVID-19. Information is available here via the Department of Health's website. If you need assistance scheduling or attending your vaccination appointment, please contact the Member Services Team on 1300 787 581 and select Option 1.

Family and friends unable to visit

At Five Good Friends we believe in the power and importance of friendships. We aim for our support to not only be there for our Members but also for those close to them that provide help. COVID-19 can make it more difficult to spend time with those we love. In addition to the direct care and services we provide into the home we also offer a Wellbeing Phone Call service.

This service is a scheduled phone call made to our Members to check on their wellbeing, see how they are going, and even just have a good chat (we all need that sometimes). We can also identify if there is any other support that is required.

As part of the service the team will complete a Wellness Survey which will identify and raise any concerns to their Care Manager for follow up if required. If as a carer or a Member you feel this service could benefit, you can contact Member Services on 1300 787 581, Option 1 for more information. We are here to help.

Contactless and reduced contact services

We have designed services to address specific situations and provide additional support and peace of mind. These include:

• Contactless shopping and delivery.
• Telehelp - assisted (if required) telehealth visits.

To access these services please contact your Care Manager via the details in your Five Good Friends App or contact Member Services on 1300 787 581 Option 1.

Rescheduling or cancelling services

We continue to urge all Helpers and Five Good Friends team members to be vigilant in their management of COVID-19 and any symptoms. This includes cancelling visits if they have any concerns. If your Helper does need to cancel a visit at short notice we would be grateful for your understanding. We will work very hard to ensure your services continue with minimal disruption. If you want to make a change to your visits you can discuss this directly with your Helpers. If you require further assistance please contact our Member Services Team on 1300 787 581 and select Option 1.

We are distributing this information by email as it is the most efficient way we can reach as many Five Good Friends Members and their loved ones as possible. We would be grateful if you shared this information to assist in its distribution. We are also grateful you have chosen Five Good Friends. We will continue to diligently monitor the COVID-19 situation and do our best to provide you safe, flexible, kind and consistent support.

Kind regards,

William Garton
Head of Quality and Programme Development
Five Good Friends