Fulfilling lives
for 60 years

Fulfilling lives for 60 years

Stephanie Buckland, Chief Executive Officer

Amana Living’s story began in 1962 when the Anglican Diocese set about fulfilling its mission to care for ageing West Australians by establishing Anglican Homes for the Aged.

At the first meeting of Anglican Homes, chaired by Archbishop Robert Moline, our inaugural Executive Director Archdeacon Frederick Guest laid out plans to build accommodation so ‘aged people should not be moved away from the particular area in which they have resided for the greater part of their lives’.

Through sheer grit and determination, the executive committee raised funds to build our first home, Moline House, which opened in Karrinyup in 1965. The executive committee wanted to help those who didn’t have any money or assets, so some of the first residents didn’t pay any ingoing costs. We continue to subsidise accommodation for those in need to this day.

By the early 1980s, around 1,100 people lived at an Anglican Home property, receiving the care and/or services they needed. But the demand far exceeded the resources of Anglican Homes. Priority admission was based on assessed need regardless of religion, race, or social status.

The opportunity to help those less fortunate has always been a driver for the organisation.

William Temple, former Archbishop of Canterbury, once said the Church is an organisation that exists for the benefit of its non-members. This was true of Anglican Homes in the 1960s, and it is true of Amana Living, as the organisation became known in 2006.

Despite a continued lack of funding for aged care, we have always found a way to meet the needs of older West Australians irrespective of their background.

We’ve been at the forefront of caring for people with dementia, opening the first dementia-specific accommodation in WA, leading the way in dementia care training, and pioneering a one-of-a-kind support service for carers, the McCusker Nurse Service.

It’s thanks to the generosity of philanthropists, like the McCusker Foundation, and ongoing support of the Diocese through the Anglican Community Fund, that we’ve been able to deliver services like the McCusker Nurses, introduce music and art therapy programs, and help older people remain connected to their communities through our day clubs and Kites social outings.

It’s also thanks to our people whose unwavering commitment goes beyond caring for people’s health, extending to their mind, and soul. The embodiment of this is our chaplaincy team which has been providing spiritual and emotional support since the appointment of our first full-time senior chaplain,
Father Les Goode, in the early 1980s.

Looking to the future, we’re developing a new model of care that will come to life at a care campus in Kinross, due to open next year.

In this, our 60th year, we are unveiling a new vision which is ‘a community where every older person is honoured and valued.’

It challenges the constructs of society that devalue older people and their role in our community. As the Right Reverend Brian Kyme, Assistant Bishop of Perth, said at our jubilee service in 1987, ‘We have a concern for the elderly as they are, and a conviction of what they might be’.