Understanding the Intent and Expectations
Standard 7 applies exclusively to registered providers of residential aged care services and centres on making the care home a safe, vibrant, and inclusive community where individuals can maintain relationships, pursue meaningful activities, and live with dignity.
This standard is not just about lifestyle. It requires a skilled workforce capable of embracing inclusion, recognising risk, enabling social connection, and supporting continuity during transitions into and out of care.
Outcomes and Workforce Requirements
Standard 7 comprises two core outcomes: Daily Living (7.1) and Transitions (7.2). Both necessitate targeted training.
Outcome 7.1 – Daily Living
Staff must support individuals to:
- Engage in culturally meaningful and community-based activities.
- Minimise loneliness, promote autonomy, and sustain personal relationships, including sexual and gender expression and privacy.
- Feel physically and psychologically safe.
- Contribute to the community (e.g. gardening, cooking) in ways that foster dignity and purpose.
Outcome 7.2 – Transitions
Staff must be equipped with the relevant knowledge, skills and competence to manage:
- Safe transfers (transitions) between care settings, e.g. hospital discharges, community outings.
- Continuity of care and engagement of individuals and supporters in decision-making.
- Coordination across providers, ensuring shared accountability and communication
What Training Is Required?
The skills required to meet the outcomes and intent of Standard 7 depend on training because every individual is different. Each has its own story, culture, and needs. Staff need support to recognise this diversity, build real connections, and create a place where everyone feels they truly belong.
Core Topics to Include in Training on Standard 7
Key topics to provide training on relating to Standard 6 Food and Nutrition include:
| Topic | Required Knowledge and Skills |
|---|---|
| Lifestyle and engagement | Understanding how to tailor activities to individual preferences, including cultural, gender, spiritual, and trauma-informed, healing-aware considerations. |
| Human rights and dignity of risk | Balancing safety with autonomy, including supporting personal and intimate relationships without judgment. |
| Communication and connection | Active listening, life story work, and strategies to minimise boredom and loneliness. |
| Transition planning | Clear understanding of protocols for hospital transfer, discharge planning, and collaborating with external service and care providers. |
| Diversity and inclusion | Supporting culturally safe care, especially for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residents, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those from CALD backgrounds. |
Meeting the requirements of Standard 7 also requires an expected baseline knowledge and skill level derived from training on other Standards.
For example, staff must also know how to document lifestyle preferences and risks in care plans and partner with residents to evaluate and improve community participation (Standard 3).
Who Needs Training?
Training should be assigned based on the scope and relevance to an individual’s role.
| Staff Role | Training Focus |
|---|---|
| Care workers | Supporting social connection, respecting privacy and personal relationships, dignity of risk, and daily living support. |
| Registered and enrolled nurses | Coordinating transitions, recognising psychosocial risk, escalation pathways, and care planning. |
| Lifestyle and engagement staff | Designing inclusive, meaningful activities, supporting autonomy and community participation. |
| Maintenance staff | Workplace health and safety, manual handling. |
| Hospitality and support staff | Creating welcoming, respectful environments, understanding cultural and personal preferences. |
| Managers and team leaders | Complaint handling related to engagement and monitoring quality indicators. |
Contracted providers and agency workers must also complete induction and role-specific training
What Will Be Audited?
To assess conformance with Standard 7: The Residential Community, auditors will triangulate data and can request data across multiple domains, including:
1. Documents and Records
- Evidence of training in community participation, transition management, and culturally safe care.
- Care plans with individualised goals related to community engagement.
- Transition records showing coordination and communication across service providers and specialists
2. Feedback
Residents may be asked:
- “Can you do the things that are important to you?”
- “Do you feel safe here and connected to others?”
Workers may be asked:
- “What training have you had to support someone’s social or intimate relationships?”
- “How do you support transitions to or from a hospital or specialist care provider?”
3. Observations
- Auditors may observe community spaces, activity rosters, group engagement, or private interactions.
- They will assess whether the environment supports autonomy, privacy, safety, and cultural expression.
4. Continuous Improvement Evidence
- Evidence that feedback or incidents relating to loneliness, transition gaps, or lifestyle dissatisfaction have been reviewed and used to improve systems
L&D Guide to Training on Standard 7
Training must be purposeful, targeted, and responsive to regulatory and individual staff needs to effectively achieve Standard 7's intent and outcomes.
Here are three practical strategies to help you:
- Begin with a needs assessment. Identify where the biggest gaps lie for your service, such as inclusion, relationship support, and managing transitions. Try to assess the root cause of the professional practice gap. Is it an issue with confidence, not just knowledge, in the staff’s ability to recognise and respond to individuals’ social and emotional needs?
- Map training to roles and responsibilities: Avoid ‘spray and pray’ training. Assign training to the specific responsibilities of each job role. What a lifestyle coordinator needs will differ from that of a care worker or maintenance staff.
- Use methods that connect learning to real life: For sensitive and nuanced topics like dignity of risk, sexuality, and cultural expression, prioritise learning methods that are reflective, discussion-based, and rooted in real scenarios staff might face.
Standard 7 reframes residential care as not just a place to live, but a place to belong. Staff training must go beyond compliance to actively build a capable, inclusive, and confident workforce that helps residents live meaningful, connected lives.
A final note is to be mindful that when supporting staff to meet the requirements of Standard 7, you create a safe and inclusive learning environment when teaching or providing training on these sensitive topics.
List of Ausmed Modules on Standard 7
The following modules from the Ausmed Library help you meet the education and training requirements of Standard 7.
Explore the full library here.
