“Thin markets”: Recruitment and retention of disability staff to support effective post-parental care planning in rural Australia

The life expectancy of persons with intellectual disability is increasing, and this is often occurring concurrently with the aging of their long-term parental carers. Research in both Australia and around the world indicates that proactive post-parental care planning is not widely implemented, and transitions primarily happen suddenly following a personal crisis for the primary caregiver. Little focus in Australia has been placed on identifying the barriers that inhibit post-parental care planning in rural areas, specifically in the context of the newly implemented National Disability Insurance Scheme. This paper examines the factors that limit disability services and their staff in supporting successful post-parental care planning for individuals with intellectual disability and their aging carers in rural South Australia. Small focus groups were conducted with three groups of rural disability support workers using online technologies to assist with the participants' geographic disparity. A semi-structured interview guide was developed prior to commencement and was used to initiate discussions on key points. A thematic analysis methodological approach was used for data analysis. There were three themes identified through the analysis; Recruitment; Provision of Care; and Retention. The key findings relating to these themes are presented and supported with exemplar quotes. This research proposes three recommendations for policy or practice change: developing a national advertising campaign for new disability staff that positively emphasizes the high-level skillset need for proactive planning; supporting rural disability providers to collaborate to establish shared teams of staff with expertise in post-parental care planning; and, using incentive payments to retain staff with these invaluable skillsets in the disability sector.