Once again, we want to thank our entire community for their patience, empathy and compassion. Five Good Friends is working hard to navigate the changing landscape as our nation slowly emerges from lockdowns and begins to live with COVID-19.

Today we have some further updates about changes in vaccination requirements for our Helpers in New South Wales.

Five Good Friends strongly encourages and supports vaccinations. This includes vaccinations against Influenza and COVID-19. Since vaccines for COVID-19 have become available, Five Good Friends has been urging all Helpers, Staff, Members and their loved ones to get vaccinated. To ensure that Helpers have the support they need during this time, we are regularly communicating with them. Our strong belief is that vaccination is the most important thing we can do to keep our community safe.

Recent changes announced. Vaccination requirements for Helpers extended to all of New South Wales

Recently, public health orders were amended in NSW for in-home and community aged care workers and persons providing disability support services. Five Good Friends Helpers are included in these groups.

The orders outline that in order to attend work, any person who provides disability services or in-home and community aged care must provide evidence that they have:

• Received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by 9am on 25th October 2021.
• Received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by 9am on 29th November 2021.
• A certificate in the form approved by the Chief Health Officer, issued by a medical practitioner, specifying a medical contraindication that makes the worker unable to be vaccinated.

Further information is available on the NSW Health website here and the Australian Department of Health website here.

What do the updated public health orders mean for Members?

The safety and well-being of our Members is our priority. To continue supporting Five Good Friends Members, all Helpers living in New South Wales must comply with the public health orders and timelines.

If a Helper does not provide evidence of their vaccinations to Five Good Friends by the specified dates, then we are required to remove the Helper from all visits until they provide the information. Please know that we are doing our best to ensure this is not the case by contacting, encouraging and assisting all Helpers to receive the vaccination and to comply with the public health orders.

Helper education and support

We have been regularly communicating with Helpers about COVID-19 vaccination since vaccines became available. This included trying to prepare Helpers for the possibility of mandates, which we expected would be rolled out across the country. From the beginning of the pandemic, we have been regularly sharing clear, credible, and objective information from peak health, scientific and Government bodies. We have communicated with New South Wales Helpers about the specifics of these updated public health orders.

We have also been aware of the growing misinformation in the community. To address this, we recently ran a webinar with Dr Paul Griffin, Head of Infectious Diseases at the Mater Hospital. Dr Griffin is one of the country’s leading experts on COVID-19 and Vaccination. We have shared the webinar with all Helpers and Five Good Friends Team Members. You can watch the webinar here.

What happens next?

We have been pre-emptively in touch with our Helpers in order to understand their vaccination status and minimise disruption to our Members' schedules, where possible. If a Helper is unable to meet the required timelines, we have asked them to advise us as soon as possible to ensure we can organise alternative Helpers for our Members. Helpers who are vaccinated must provide Five Good Friends with a copy of their Immunisation and Vaccination History. This is assigned to their profile and a verification is published in the app.

Thank you for your patience and understanding

We are grateful you have chosen Five Good Friends and appreciate your patience and understanding as we work with these new public health orders. If you have any questions please contact our Member Services Team on 1300 787 581 and select option 1. We will continue to diligently monitor the COVID-19 situation and do our best to provide safe, flexible, kind and consistent support.

Yours Sincerely,
Simon Lockyer
CEO of Five Good Friends