Dementia Engagement Consultant

Are you an allied health professional who is passionate about best-practice dementia care and helping people living with dementia live well?

Harbison is looking for an experienced and engaging allied health professional to join us as our Dementia Engagement Consultant, building on our strong foundations in dementia care across residential and community services. This is a unique opportunity to use your clinical expertise to strengthen evidence-informed practice, build workforce capability and support consistently high-quality outcomes for people living with dementia.

Working across Harbison’s continuum of services, you’ll combine your allied health expertise with specialist dementia practice to coach and empower teams, embed meaningful engagement and strengthen reablement and strengths-based approaches in everyday care.

You’ll work alongside people living with dementia, their supporters and multidisciplinary teams to translate contemporary evidence and best practice into practical strategies that promote independence, participation, connection, wellbeing and quality of life.

If you’re an allied health professional who wants to build on strong existing practice, support the ongoing development of our teams and contribute to excellence in dementia care from diagnosis through to end of life, we’d love to hear from you.

Harbison Overview

Harbison is a charitable, community-owned, not-for-profit organisation that provides residential and non-residential care and support services for aged or disabled people, including a range of support services and systems to assist aged and disabled people to achieve maximum independence and integration within a residential or community setting, education and training of professionals and other care providers, and activities which are incidental or conducive to these objectives.

Harbison offers community focused educational programs, such as its intergenerational program, and has added childcare services through its subsidiary, Harbison Early Learning Pty Ltd (HEL) to its portfolio of programs. HEL is an approved childcare provider.

Currently, Harbison is an approved aged care provider, retirement village owner, and one of the largest employers in the Southern Highlands. Harbison is governed by a Board of Directors which appoints a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who is delegated with day-to-day responsibility for the organisation.

Primary Purpose of the Role

The Dementia Engagement Consultant provides specialist, consultative practice leadership across Harbison’s residential aged care homes and community services, and is the clinical lead for reablement-focused allied health professionals in community settings. The role supports Harbison’s vision of supporting people from diagnosis to death by guiding, coaching and building staff capability to deliver consistent, dementia-informed support across community and residential care. Working as a clinician-consultant, the role partners with residents, clients, supporters and multidisciplinary teams to assess needs, recommend evidence-informed approaches and enable staff to translate these recommendations into everyday practice. The role empowers teams to embed meaningful engagement, reablement and quality-of-life approaches that build on individual strengths, preferences, abilities and goals. The role translates evidence-informed dementia practice into practical coaching, service design, outcome measurement and continuous improvement, supporting staff to strengthen independence, connection, participation and wellbeing outcomes for people living with dementia across residential and community settings.

Equal work opportunities

At Harbison, we do not discriminate against, a person's cultural background, heritage, disability, age, gender, or sexuality. Harbison believes in equal work opportunity for all workers and candidates.

Benefits

• Salary packaging includes up to $15,900 in pre-tax earnings plus $2,650 to contribute towards entertainment benefits each year.
• Access to in-house and online training programs.
• Career progression opportunities.
• Supportive, positive team environment.

Requirements

• Tertiary qualification in an allied health discipline, such as psychology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, social work, or a related field.
• Demonstrated ability to guide staff in undertaking holistic functional, cognitive and environmental assessments and translating findings into practical recommendations.
• Dementia-specific qualification, training or demonstrated specialist capability in dementia practice, or willingness to obtain
• Ongoing commitment to professional development, evidence-informed practice and reflective learning.
• Demonstrated experience consulting, coaching and building staff capability through specialist practice support in dementia care, aged care, disability, community services or allied health settings.
• Experience supporting people living with dementia and their families through transitions across care settings is highly desirable.
• Experience working across residential aged care and/or community-based services, with an understanding of transitions, continuity of care and multidisciplinary collaboration.
• Advanced understanding of dementia, meaningful engagement, reablement, behaviour support, enabling environments and quality-of-life approaches.
• Sound understanding of occupational engagement, environmental modification, behaviour support and reablement principles.
• Ability to support staff to translate assessment findings, consumer goals and quality-of-life measures into practical plans, coaching strategies and measurable outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to coach and influence multidisciplinary teams to implement person-centred, evidence-informed practice through consultation rather than direct service delivery.
• Commitment to empowering staff through coaching, consultation and reflective practice, enabling teams to strengthen confidence, skills and consistent dementia-informed care.
• Ability to apply contemporary evidence-based programs and approaches, including Cognitive Stimulation Therapy, COPE principles, enabling environments and occupation-based practice, to improve quality of life and participation.
• High-level interpersonal, consultation, facilitation, negotiation and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Strong project, evaluation and continuous improvement skills, including the ability to use data and feedback to demonstrate impact.

If this opportunity interests you, we'd love to hear from you. Simply upload your resume and cover letter, and we'll send you the full Position Description by email.

Please note the current Influenza vaccination is a requirement of employment at Harbison.

COVID-19 vaccinations are highly recommended.

Pay: $60.00 – $64.00 per hour

Work Location: In person