The Dedicated Staffing Model, which is an important part of our vision ‘to be the provider of choice’, has been implemented across all Amana Living residential care sites.

Dedicated Staffing involves directly assigning particular staff to a small group of residents. This reduces the number of staff who care for each resident, significantly improving staff members’ understanding of and responsiveness to residents’ needs. The feedback from Amana Living residents, family members and staff has been overwhelmingly positive.

Oonagh Zimmermann, Project Manager for Dedicated Staffing, accepted the award on behalf of Amana Living.

Amana Living CEO Stephanie Buckland, said: “I would like to acknowledge the efforts of everyone involved in the Dedicated Staffing Model. This includes Oonagh, Zenith Zeeman, Veronica Scannell, Robyn Knuckey and all of our Service Managers, especially Yulunda Matau who introduced the concept to Amana Living and led the pilot of the model at James Brown Care Centre.”

The Dedicated Staffing Model will now go to the ACSA National Awards which will be held in Sydney in September. We were also very pleased to see Emily Lees win a High Commendation for Employee of the Year. 

As our Manager of Enrichment and Volunteers, Emily is passionate about developing and implementing programs to help our clients and residents enjoy their lives with Amana Living. Emily is also the architect of the Amana Living Arts Festival, which was an outstanding success in its inaugural year.


Congratulations also goes to our three other Amana Living finalists at the 2018 ACSA Aged Care awards. They were:

Nicole Gardiner - Employee of the Year
Terry Walsh - Lifetime Achievement Award
Kevin Knott - Volunteer of the Year


Stephanie Buckland added: “Thank you to all of the finalists for their outstanding contributions to Amana Living and their selfless dedication to improving the lives of our residents and clients, and their families. Although they may have not won an award, they are all winners in our eyes!”

In addition to the individual finalists, the Amana Living Arts Festival was a finalist for Innovation in Service or Design; and Amana Living was a finalist for Aged Care Provider of the Year.