13 December 2021
On Wednesday 24 November, the Regis community celebrated our highest achieving people through the 2021 National Regis Care Awards. These awards identified individuals, teams and sites that demonstrate a commitment to The Regis Way by making Regis Homes and sites an even better place to live and work. The Awards were announced virtually and teams gathered online and in-person, in COVID-safe environments to watch the presentation.
We received over 2,500 nominations from employees, residents and families! The volume of nominations reflects the level of dedicated, skilled and valued people we have at Regis who we are proud to call our employees. In a year filled with challengers and change, we also acknowledged the capability, effort and care of all of our 9000+ employees working and volunteering at Regis across Australia.
This year, we celebrated winners across 12 special categories:
- Home of the Year
- CEO Award
- Initiative or Innovation of the Year
- Service Excellence
- Outstanding Home Services
- Clinical Care Excellence
- Outstanding Carer
- Outstanding Dementia Care
- Outstanding Personal Leadership
- Volunteer of the Year
- Outstanding Safety Leadership
- Environmental Leadership
Winners and finalists were gifted with a cash prize, trophy and certificate.
We consider ourselves lucky at Regis to be surrounded by the talent and passion exhibited by our employees and volunteers. We are excited to be able to share the amazing stories of our winners who continue to lead the way in providing quality care for our residents and clients.
You can watch the 2021 National Regis Care Awards here.
Our winners stories
Clyde Black wins the CEO Award. Clyde was also a finalist for the Outstanding Personal Leadership award.
The recipient of the CEO Award is selected by Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Linda Mellors from the final pool of award candidates. When thinking about the qualities of this award winner, Linda asks herself an array of questions: how has this person shown exceptional leadership skills? How have they been innovative in their thinking and actions? Have they consistently displayed integrity and compassion? How have they positively impacted residents, colleagues, and the wider community? When reflecting on these questions, Linda was able to identify one such person. Throughout 2021, this person has lived and breathed the Regis values and the qualities of integrity, compassion, leadership, innovation and positivity. These sentiments are echoed by residents, colleagues and leaders. Congratulations Clyde Black.
Regis Lutwyche wins Home of the Year
Regis Lutwyche embodies a culture of excellence and inclusion with a focus on customer experience, service, improvement and innovation. Regis Lutwyche has an excellent reputation in the community, a strong leadership team that drives results and development, a clinical team that puts residents at the heart of all they do and a culture of success. The Home embraces difference, diversity and inclusion. The Home’s vibrant Lifestyle Program is delivered by the energetic team which positively impacts the lives of residents and helps build connections with each other and the community. The Lutwyche family celebrate life and bring people, culture and families together.
Juanita Baker wins Initiative or Innovation of the Year and Outstanding Home Services. Juanita was also a finalist for the Service Excellence award.
The Initiative or Innovation of the Year: Juanita Baker has created the Armchair Travel initiative which sees residents have a cultural experience by visiting a new country each month, enjoy the cuisine of the country, have ‘in-flight’ snacks, and participate in country-specific activities to learn about different cultures. Juanita has gone the extra mile to transform the room to resemble being on a plane, they have plane windows to look outside, headrests, and a tray of plane food. Juanita has even personalised individual passports for each resident which includes a photo and gets stamped on each adventure.
The immersive experience of travelling to different countries and learning about the culture, food and people has been one that has made a significant difference to the cultural diversity in the Home. Residents are engaged and learning about cultural awareness is something that has made the Elermore Vale Home an even more welcoming and inclusive environment for all.
Armchair travel has had a hugely positive impact on residents, employees and the entire Regis community. This story was Regis’ most shared social media post, reaching over 2,000,000 people globally, and receiving over 100,000 reactions, comments and shares.
The Outstanding Home Services award: Juanita Baker is a Lifestyle Coordinator and a valued member of the Regis Elermore Vale team. Juanita is dedicated to the residents, team and families at Elermore Vale, and provides an evolving, engaging lifestyle program, which is always designed around the resident’s needs, feedback and suggestions. From extraordinary events and activities with every level of detail covered, to a cup of tea with a resident, Juanita is known to enrich lives and make a difference to the community at Elermore Vale. Juanita puts a lot of time in her Lifestyle Program at Elermore Vale, but also demonstrates her commitment by supporting her team and colleagues across Regis. This includes holding employee appreciation days, organising care packages, poems, or being available for a chat. During the COVID-19 outbreaks in New South Wales, Juanita made up a package with sweets and an encouraging note to send to all employees in each of our four Sydney Homes.
Juanita is known for continued dedication and genuine care for each of the residents and provides an exciting, fun and inclusive program to stimulate and keep residents active.
The Legal Team win the Service Excellence award
The Legal team is renowned for being kind, supportive and patient while providing expert advice and guidance to our Homes, sites, villages, employees and community. As a team, they approach their work with diligence and integrity and bring a positive outlook to what can sometimes be challenging situations. In a year like no other, with the ongoing impacts of the pandemic and the Royal Commission, just to name a few, the team monitors government directions and provision of key updates to a range of areas in the organisation, which is invaluable to the Homes and for our community. Their interpersonal and communication skills are appreciated by many and enable internal stakeholders to feel supported and work efficiently and effectively in their roles.
Ming Ming Tiong wins Clinical Care Excellence award
Ming Ming Tiong is a Clinical Manager at Regis Burnside and has been part of our Regis family for more than ten years. Ming Ming’s passion and optimism shines while she cares for residents and supports her team. She brings energy and empathy to her role, is hard working and strives to help ensure positive resident outcomes. She is highly respected by her team, and works in collaboration with them to ensure they are well trained and equipped with resources and support to deliver safe care. Many residents and families have known Ming Ming from when she commenced and have strong relationships which are based on care, compassion and communication.
Sharon Ryan wins the Outstanding Carer award
Sharon Ryan has been part of the Regis Port Stephens family since 2010 as an Assistant in Nursing (AIN). Sharon has consistently provided high-quality care to residents that have varying degrees of dementia, complex care needs, and palliative care. She excels in all aspects of her AIN work, but her commitment to detail and ensuring each resident and their family are listened to, and made to feel comfortable and valued is what makes her special. She provides value-based, person-centred care at all times and this reflects strongly in her clinical outcomes for the residents she cares for. She is highly in-tune with identification of clinical decline and significant changes in residents and escalates her concerns appropriately. She is also a positive role model and mentor for junior employees and leads the way in high standards of care. Sharon demonstrates strong leadership skills and is respectful and mindful of following policy and procedure to achieve goals.
Families and residents have provided testimony to her positivity and kindness, sharing that she is always respectful, passionate and happy to be around and goes the extra mile to care for residents. Sharon put her own self in the residents’ shoes, showing love, caring, compassion, giving emotional support when needed, combined with humour when appropriate, and empathy when residents and family need it.
Gary Mina wins the Outstanding Dementia Care
Gary is known to respect, care and advocate for residents living with dementia while showing kindness, patience and understanding. Gary takes the time to build relationships with every resident and their family at Regis East Malvern. He provides excellent care for residents and his detail-orientated nature ensures he can manage behaviours effectively. His Lifestyle Program is engaging and purposeful, with cognitively challenging activities like quizzes and word games. However, where he gets the residents attention and fully engaged is when he brings out his guitar, sings and dances. Gary brings people from across the Home together and the echoes of singing, dancing, laughing are heard from all over the Home. Families describe Gary as magic.
James Theofanis wins the Outstanding Personal Leadership award
Those that have worked with James Theofanis have nothing but praise to share about his infectious passion and commitment to the industry. James is known for his ability to support teams and maximise their potential in challenging circumstances. He continues to demonstrate the Regis values while managing his teams throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, especially at Regis Brighton during their outbreak. James has an incredible ability to help people around him stay focused while under pressure. James provided hands-on support and unwavering commitment to the team at Brighton by providing guidance and direction through a difficult time, which was also a personal risk and sacrifice to him.
James has a wealth of knowledge, positive energy, a calm and consistent approach, and importantly a focus on achieving the best outcomes for residents and teams. James works collaboratively with his teams to motivate them to achieve their best. He is also an influential leader across Regis and not only a great support for his team, but his peers and colleagues across the business, being a mentor to many.
Phil Bell wins Volunteer of the Year award
Phil Bell has a huge heart, is always himself, has thick skin and an ever-ready smile! He has volunteered at Regis Sandgate Lucinda for 18-months and has an astounding impact with the residents. Phil visits the Home weekly to assist with activities for men which can be general conversation, playing a game of bobs, billiards or simply working in the gardens. He also arranged a regular one-hour mystery bus trip by asking a friend who has a bus license to volunteer. Phil is always available to lend a helping hand with theme days or lighting up the BBQ. He also spends time with residents living with dementia and is ready to listen to them and respects their journey. Phil often attends our concerts and gets residents to dance or encourages them to clap and get involved and often turns up in costume to add that extra smile.
Gary Stewart wins Outstanding Safety Leadership
Gary Stewart is a symbol of acting upon good workplace health and safety and demonstrated this through mentoring and modelling safe work practises. His commitment to the safety and wellbeing of his colleagues is outstanding. Gary’s timely response to safety hazards and inspections for the Home are meticulous. He ensures all issues are closed out promptly and efficiently.
He is known to go the extra mile to make sure others are safe and his colleagues are always at the front of mind. Gary delivers the Monthly Safety Posters education with employees to ensure they are aware of what’s going on in the Home regarding safety awareness.
Gary embodies the Regis values and seeks to deliver excellence by seeing tasks through, and helping, support and develop others. Gary notices when the team needs a boost and acts upon it with unstinting enthusiasm. His colleagues describe Gary as highly professional, but never forgets the importance of fun.
Ringwood Lifestyle Team wins the Environmental Leadership award
Having introduced sustainability into their ongoing projects of arts and craft, sewing as well as celebrations and bus trips, the Lifestyle team at Regis Ringwood has created meaningful impact for residents, community and the environment. An initiative led by the Lifestyle team was to create and sell ECO dancing skirts to raise money for asylum seekers and the Refugee Resource Centre. This initiative has been warmly embraced by residents and appreciated by the organisations receiving the funds. The team has social sustainability as one of their goals which aligns strongly with the Regis Values. The Lifestyle team consistently plans activities so residents are given the opportunity to be creative, involved, and be part of celebrating individual projects, and spreading the message of caring for the environment, no matter what their level of ability or mobility.
