Co-operative Care Wagin interviewed on ABC Radio

In the media

7 February 2025

Co-operative Care Wagin’s convenor Wendy Pederick, was interviewed by ABC Great Southern Breakfast’s Paul Cook this morning about the new co-op and its services for the Wagin town and beyond.

Listen to the interview (41-48:12)

Read more about Co-operative Care Wagin in our project synopsis.

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Transcript

Paul Cook

But now aged care and health services in Country WA are a challenge many of us face frequently, whether it’s for ourselves or our grandparents or parents. The challenge for many is being able to stay in the place you love while getting the support you need to maintain a healthy and happy life. The local town of raging. As a co-op recently established to help residents access essential care services, and although federally funded, the relies on the local community to pull their resources together and make the management of health and care just a little bit more palatable for all involved.

Called the Care Together Program, it’s an initiative of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals. Yes I did have to Google that and find out what it was. It’s got $7,000,000 in funding to educate and support the care economy. There’s a lot of jargon and bureaucracy in those few words, so let’s cut through this and find out what care together means and what the benefits are to those involved with. Wendy Pederick the Convener of the Co-operative Care in Wagin joining me on the program this morning. Hello, Wendy.

Wendy Pederick

Good morning. How are you?

Paul Cook

I’m well. How’s Wagin this morning?

Wendy Pederick

Oh yeah, we’ve had a heatwave. It’s a little bit cooler so we’re all breathing a bit of a sigh.

Paul Cook

Yeah, it certainly been incredibly warm. Wendy. What is the landscape in Wagin like for those who require aged care and access to specific health services for older Australians at the moment, how does the picture look?

Wendy Pederick

It’s something fantastic services available, and quite often they’re siloed. So one organisation does what it does really, really well, but the next organisation doesn’t know what it’s doing and, so there sometimes there’s an unawareness or a misconnection between what people’s needs are and what’s available. So what we’re looking at doing, you know, there’s there’s really good services there. So what we’re looking for, it’s trying to improve people’s access to those services.

Paul Cook

Ohh, so laymen’s terms. How does Cooperative Care Wagin and work and who’s involved?

Wendy Pederick

We we’re pretty brand new. We were a registered business entity or we’re not for profit organisation and we registered on the 20th of January this year. So we’re not a month old yet.

Paul Cook

Yeah.

Wendy Pederick

And so it’ll be a co-operative, and it’ll be member-owned and member-driven. And so the members contribute and they benefit from the co-operative, like a co-operative of any sort, really. It’s for the members. And the members have power and autonomy and control over the decision making of the co-operative. But the purpose of the co-operative is to help people access, people being health and social needs, being able to access those needs within an accepting community.

Paul Cook

How many residents of Wagin do you reckon will benefit from this co-operative model?

Wendy Pederick

Oh, well, it’s not just limited to the residents of Wagin. I mean Wagin’s population 1,800 and we’re not putting any limitation on anyone participating or belonging to the co-operative but it’s also their family members, you know if your parents lived in Wagin and you know, there can be a sense that there are isolate or you know if something happens. What have they do? So what we’re wanting to do is give peace of mind to family members as well.

Paul Cook

There were nine projects slated to get underway with the Care Together program. Wagin is the trailblazer. So you’re front and centre, Wendy, as the convener of the Co-operative Care in Wagin. What sort of support have you got and what are you learning as you go?

Wendy Pederick

Gosh, I could just about write a book on all of that.

Yeah. So it is brand new, it is innovative, it’s not been done before.  So it’s scary, really. But Wagin’s a great community. We’ve got a lot of people who pull together for a good cause so that’s a huge big plus. And I’ll just think, you know, small towns, some of the pluses are in living in a small town, people choose to live in small towns because they like the connectivity. Some of that is lost in the bigger centres. Just so there is a strong sense of cohesion and people pulling together to make it a good idea eventuate and become a reality.

Paul Cook

And the response, Wendy, in the community is quite positive? People are keen to jump on the co-operative wagon and ride this journey.

Wendy Pederick

Well. We haven’t started our membership drive yet, but I haven’t spoken to a single person yet, who said ohh, we don’t need that, Everyone can tell you a story of some need for healthcare, for some social concern, and they just didn’t know where to go or how to access the help that they needed. So, that’s, you know, the thing that we’re aiming for to give that peace of mind and that access to people.

Paul Cook

Have you got timelines and benchmarks when you want to start ticking stuff off the list. Are you at that stage yet Wendy?

Wendy Pederick

Just.

You know all.

These things take a little bit longer than what you expect them to. I think the whole point is that the capital is not coming. You know, we’ve gotta save ourselves.

Probably will do a membership drive in February, March. I don’t know. I would like to think we’ll have our launch event in March, but it’s more likely to be April, you know where it’s stretching out a little bit, but we want to do it well, we want to do it properly. When we do launch, we want it to be just perfect and there be strong take up of the idea.

Paul Cook

Wendy Pederick, convener of the Co-operative Care in Wagin, Look it sounds like a good idea and I can only imagine that the community would be incredibly keen to support this and sort of this sharing the load model. I appreciate your time talking this morning. It sounds like you have an exciting path head of you.

Wendy Pederick

We do. And you know it is a federal government initiative because they are aware there is a need in rural, regional remote areas for, you know, there to be a better service and access than what there has been previously.

Paul Cook

Absolutely there is.

Wendy, thank you for your time.

Wendy Pederick

Okay, thank you.