In this episode Scott Lynch (Managing Director of Community Therapy) and Lloyd Valentine (Founder of Healthy Change Challenge) talk about:
Scott is Chair of the Australian Physiotherapy Association’s Gerontology Committee and Managing Director of Community Therapy; a company he started 5 years ago that has grown to a team of 70 Physios, OTs, Dietitians, Speech Pathologists and Massage Therapists. Community Therapy delivers values-driven community, aged and disability allied health services across the Hunter and Central Coast regions of NSW.
Today’s Guest
Lloyd Valentine is a purpose driven leader.
After an early corporate career in finance, Lloyd found himself unable to work for a number of years due to serious health issues.
Working with vulnerable people really helped with his recovery and he has been creating organisations and projects with people of all intellectual and physical abilities ever since.
Lloyd is the founder of Healthy Change Challenge and they are extending the reach of their mission and vision with the Healthy Change Village!
Things you will learn:
As discussed in the episode, take the time to consider what your organisation's mission, vision and values are.
Are they current and relevant?
Are they aligned with your strategic and operational plan?
A great healthcare business is dependent on these things. To deliver great healthcare, you need to be very clear and focused on these areas.
Resources
In this episode Scott Lynch (Managing Director of Community Therapy) and Lloyd Valentine (Founder of Healthy Change Challenge) talk about:
Scott is Chair of the Australian Physiotherapy Association’s Gerontology Committee and Managing Director of Community Therapy; a company he started 5 years ago that has grown to a team of 70 Physios, OTs, Dietitians, Speech Pathologists and Massage Therapists. Community Therapy delivers values-driven community, aged and disability allied health services across the Hunter and Central Coast regions of NSW.
Today’s Guest
Lloyd Valentine is a purpose driven leader.
After an early corporate career in finance, Lloyd found himself unable to work for a number of years due to serious health issues.
Working with vulnerable people really helped with his recovery and he has been creating organisations and projects with people of all intellectual and physical abilities ever since.
Lloyd is the founder of Healthy Change Challenge and they are extending the reach of their mission and vision with the Healthy Change Village!
Things you will learn:
As discussed in the episode, take the time to consider what your organisation's mission, vision and values are.
Are they current and relevant?
Are they aligned with your strategic and operational plan?
A great healthcare business is dependent on these things. To deliver great healthcare, you need to be very clear and focused on these areas.
Resources
All right. Welcome to the community health podcast where we discuss all things community healthcare. We're so passionate about health care businesses being built on the delivery of great healthcare. We like to discuss topics and interview people that are passionate about these things as well. Today I have with me Lloyd Valentine, who is founder of healthy change challenge, a social enterprise, which empowers people of all intellectual and physical disabilities, to make long term improvements to their health and well being while having fun. What are we good afternoon at the time of recording? How are you today? Yeah, I'm good. Thanks, Scott. How are you? Wonderful. Yeah, I'm really good. And like we were saying just before at the time of recording, it's been a wonderful week so far for naidoc week saying lots of organisations celebrating and raising awareness and thought we'll take the time to do that as well today. And obviously, that extends past this week with people naturally listening to this in the future. But before we start just taking the time to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I and and Lloyd are on today, well recording this via software, and extend our respect to elders past and present. So I'm up here in Port Stephens today on Worimi, where are you? I'm in Dudley, so Awabakal people's land. yeah, lovely. So for those of you who are listening, if you don't know where you are, or what land that is, take the time to Google it. So sometimes we just don't simply stop to learn and delve deeper into things. So you can hop on to the NAIDOC website, you can look on to Reconciliation Australia's website as well and start or continue your journey on increasing your awareness about culture and history of First Nations people. And now in our area here, whether it's Worimi or Awabakal, across the Hunter and Port Stephens do really a lot of great work of spreading awareness and supporting the community. But wherever you're listening to this, plenty of great resources, probably under the same device that you're listening to the recording on. So on your smartphone, start googling and start looking for information. Fantastic. Anything to add to that, Lloyd, have you guys been doing anything for naidoc? week? That's specifically for naidoc week. It's where we're actually consulting with some indigenous elders at the moment. And looking at ways that we can we can get some supports out into remote and indigenous communities with one of the products that we'll talk about today as well. yeah, fantastic. So for people that don't know who you are, or what you're doing, give us the brief little elevator pitch of Yeah, who you are and how you've come to be here today. Sure. So my background is in business law and finance. And then a bit of a long story, I had a quite a big health journey. I was off work for a few years and then started volunteering in the disability sector and straightaway loved the people that I was working with, but didn't necessarily agree with the way that some of the things have been running the sector. So quickly started a health and well being program for people of all abilities that you talked about before, called healthy change challenge. We've been running for about five years now. And it's a capacity building program, where the participants who recall challenges, learn to run their own exercise sessions, cooking sessions, mindfulness and meditation sessions in collaborative teams. And they're learning to not only run their sessions for each other, but also taking it one step further and learning to instruct and take what they learned from the program and teach other people as well. So it's very much a social and community based program. We name anything that sort of gets people moving, the guys are coming to us with all different ideas all the time of what they'd like to try. And that's finding about what they like and enjoy and engage in because if you like and enjoy what you're doing, you're much more likely to do it on a regular basis, which leads to long term improvements to health and well being. Yeah, looking across the website and obviously I've got a background of knowing a little bit about what you guys are doing that say wonderful photos of people. It looks like somewhere in Newcastle here on the beach of accessible pieces of equipment. And then there's all types of things like boxing outdoors, and I think there's some group fitness classes on the beaches as well. It's, it's just the variety is Yeah, extraordinary, really. So how do you like from an operation point of view, how do you coordinate all of that? Is it in these 12 week blocks or habit? How do you operationalize these great ideas? Yes, so the program is run in 12 week blocks now called the 12 week challenge. And so the 12 week challenge is sort of running in different themes. And depending on what the challenges would like to do, so what we do is when the challenges come to us with different things they'd like to try we find trainers and coaches and health professionals or other organizations that that do those sorts of things. And then we sort of handpick the best people to then become engaged in the program. So either they're becoming engaged as, as coaches on the program itself, or we're contracting them out to to run exercise sessions as well for the guys. But everyone involved in the program, the the idea is to sort of make themselves redundant as much as possible to get the challenges to do things together in their in their teams. And it's, it's been really amazing to see what what they're capable of doing, which is really what anyone can do. It's just about getting a very supportive environment out there for them. And giving them the means to empower them to try these things that it's been quite amazing to see, like a lot of people that have had things done for them in the past have just never had the opportunity to, to try new things and to do things for themselves. And so yeah, our staff struggles to be as hands off as much as possible and, and for them to help each other out and, and overcome the challenges they have. And and that's what they do. Yeah, wonderful. Like we were at their Hunter Disability Expo. And yeah, a bunch of the team came like streaming through. And I think what it really demonstrated to me is like there was just a real buzz and a culture and a team environment happening. And it's sort of infectious in a way and yeah, access maybe isn't the greatest word and COVID environment, but it was like, yeah, just see this infectious culture of this team environment and just roll through is that a, like a differentiating factor of like, what you guys are doing that you feel that difference? That of where you came from not liking what you saw in the sector? Is that Is it the team environment? And one of those things that are different? Yes, definitely. The team environment plays a big part, it's the culture of the organization itself. So we have a program is open to people for all abilities, and all mental health conditions as well. So we have a lot of vulnerable people coming on to the program. So to make sure the program is, is fun and safe for everyone, we have what's called a no pork chop policy. And what that means is we basically, we don't tolerate people behaving like a pork chop, for whatever reason. And the way that we enforce that is not through talking down to people at all, we actually have a very flat organization structure, there's no hierarchy, no one's above anyone. The way we enforce it is through positive reinforcement. And we have, well, a lot of different coaches use different means the positive reinforcement, probably the most popular one is the bonus point system. And it's, it's really amazing to see like, how loyal The challenges are towards their teammates, they'll do anything to earn bonus points for their team, but they're not necessarily competitive. So we can really learn a lot from them as much if not more than than they learn from us as well. And and so it's it's very much about the the challenges turning into the coaches themselves. And then and then taking it to where they want to go and a very much a program that's there while they needed. But it's a stepping stone generally or a way for people to find what they want to do or or to find their feet and then move on to something else. Yeah, leads me to thinking like now I'm a stickler for Spotify and audible, you know, podcasts and audiobooks and things. And I've circled back to a lot of Simon Sinek work again recently. And you know, most people know that name but very big of culture and organization collectives. And yeah, big thought leader and been around for a long time. Now, I think the video I listened to recently was 11 or 12 years ago, and sort of the things that you're putting in place there and pushing into is that your thoughts of like belonging cues and people as humans, we all want to be part of something and sort of leaning onto a little bit of what we discussed lightly before we pressed record today of that's part of the reason why being back in office environments is really important in the future of like team. Our own team members want to be part of a culture and a belonging as well. So COVID definitely challenged those Things of being in groups and collectives. And speaking to that, with COVID. How is that challenge such a team environment sort of operational strategy for you guys? Yeah. So in the in the early stages of COVID, we split the team's up into smaller groups to large groups up into a smaller teams as possible. But then it became impossible and unsafe to run the program out into the community. So we were looking at ways to get in the program out to the current challenges we had. But then we've also been looking at ways of how do we get this program out to all communities basically, around Australia, because it's shown to be very beneficial, not just for people of all abilities, but lots of other groups like including the aged care sector, where we take the challenges to, to run sessions, to preschools, to schools, and even corporate groups and ends and whatever else, so that when we actually had to close the program, then that sort of spurred the idea for a new online platform. And so what we did was we took, and we knew that the capacity building health and well being program was even more valuable to people during COVID, when people are isolated from each other, and a lot of people can't access their normal supports or health and well being services. So we created a free online portal called the village. And what we've done is we've taken all the trainers and coaches and health professionals from the program, and they're putting together video activities on there that anyone can access. So the videos are in categories at the moment. We've got everything from mindfulness sessions through to movement and strength sessions, through to sports through to healthy eating and cooking through to games. And videos are targeted at people of all intellectual and physical abilities in all ages. So there's, there's something really on there for everyone, including a lot of vulnerable people and their support networks as well who are quite often not gonna say neglected, but there's not a lot of support services out there necessarily for the people that are offering supports to people. And as we know, it is a very, it can be very challenging area to work at times. And we need to make sure that that everyone assisting people and working in that spaces is really well supported as well. Because if they're not in a good place themselves, then then they're not in a good place to assist other people. And one of the things we really enforce with with all our staff is to put their health and well being and their families first, before work. And that's really reinforced by everyone in their actions as well. With their side, dear of luck extending, you know, services beyond the region. Was that an idea? Prior to COVID? Or did COVID more than change the direction of that to go digital, we always thinking digital, how did that change thing? Yeah, we were thinking digital, but I guess one of the things that makes this project unique is the fact that it's available to everyone, no matter where they live for free. So one of the things that we found very challenging with the program is we haven't been able to keep up with demand for in the past, we've had a long waiting list. And a lot of people haven't had the right funding or, or don't receive any funding, we've tried to accommodate as many of those people as possible. But it's very difficult when that's currently our one source of income. And the only way that we can run the program really is to receive that funding. So we wanted to create something that was available to to anyone regardless of their diagnosis, regardless of their assessment, regardless of where they live. So people were in rural and remote areas. And so we sort of felt that this was like a really nice way of doing that. And it's not without its challenges in the fact that from a funding perspective, it's quite difficult. And a lot of the advisors and consultants sort of told me not to do it this way, but the value for us is in people using it. And what we're hoping is that what we're seeing is that service providers, health professionals, schools are using the video activities on the platform to assist other people. And there's kind of like that the three main channels were saying to get this out. Because basically there's like I mentioned before, there's something on here for everyone where we're adding new videos, new content, new presenters every week. So and we really value people's feedback in terms of what video is they would like to see. So if they're in a in an area that doesn't have certain health professionals or it doesn't have service providers or whatever else, like, please get in contact. And because we've got a really good network of people, locally around the hunter, but then also like around Australia through through healthy change champions as well. And the really nice part about it is, is that a lot of people are getting in contact with us about becoming presenters. So we kind of handpick people to be involved. But there's a lot of people a lot of interests with people wanting to be involved with the village like there has been with healthy change challenge. So we've never had to actively recruit, we've got a that seems to be the most of the businesses spread through through word of mouth through reputation, I guess. And we get a lot of referrals from health professionals, which is really nice, because it's a nice reflection that we're we're obviously doing something that's been recognized by, by experts in their particular fields. But I guess what we have on here on this platform is like, all the services on we're getting towards a lot of the health and wellbeing services that people could need. So it's, yeah, it's a different way of doing things. And we're hoping that people will support us as well. So it works on a voluntary contribution scheme. So yeah, speak to that a little bit more. I have that down. There's something to touch on today around. So I don't think many people think about social enterprises. So yes, speak to that whole concept and enlighten probably a large amount of listeners. Sure. So social enterprises, a very big overseas, but they've been a bit slower catching on in Australia, traditionally, you've had nonprofits and charities have been the only groups that have serviced the marginalized sector. In Australia, and as people are probably well aware, there's there's quite often disappointingly, a lot of competition seen amongst a lot of those organizations as well, because I guess part of that stems from the old system where people were competing for the one pool of funds, but with the neural, they're all tendering for the Yeah, exactly. But now with the NDIS, that's not eally the case. There's plenty f people out there that needs upport. So hopefully, that will ead to more collaboration. But rom an operational perspective, e feel that a social enterprise or purpose social enterprise s, is much better for us in erms of the kind of supports hat we're providing. And with aving the flat organization tructure, we were very agile, o respond to, to what whatever hanges happen both internally nd externally. So for example, uring COVID, a lot of the eedback we got was that from oordinators and supports and nd local area coordinators was hat we were one of the few rganizations that was keeping eople really updated on on new evelopments. And I think one of he reasons for that was because e don't have a whole number of evels of hierarchy for nformation to go through before t's approved to go out. And so think that was one of the roblems with the big rganizations is that by the ime it does get approved, it's ind of become redundant. So for s, it works really well. But I uess from a financial erspective, it makes it quite ifficult because a lot of the rant providers out there will nly support organizations with he deductible gift registry to gr status. But we kind of feel ike we're, we're we're not head of the game, but we're ike a bit before the time. So opefully the times will catch p. And it seems like more grant roviders are now recognizing ear that there's a lot of value n these social enterprises and, nd the way that they operate ecause one of my personal hallenges with a lot of the onprofits and charities is is ow little money in some of hose organizations actually oes towards the people that hey're to service. There's here quite often very top heavy here a lot of money is getting aid to the executives at the op or people working at the top nd when the people working on he frontline are not exactly etting rewarded financially as uch or and yeah, I just don't hink that operationally some of hem are not run in the best ay. So we feel like we have a ery good structure which Yeah, as has has held us in good tead I think I've seen evidence that the Department of Health at least like in the age care scheme of residential aged care, but across the Commonwealth home support and and home care packages as well. I know the Department of Health have been vocal and race and industry briefing. Some reform meetings about their, they're clear that they would like to see downward pressure on the amount of administrative budgets, especially in the home care setting, but also come more firm support of the amount of funds going towards administrating the programs, you tend to get that blowing out there, and it happens across other sectors as well, you're right at the executive and administrative level, that budget seems to always creep. And that then leads to less budget going out to the programs for why the organization's actually should exist. And I think you've also touched on a really important point around the power of mission, vision and values, I tend to always come back to those things and for whether it's for profit organization or not for profit or or social enterprise, the same key thing of organizations that are clearly mission, vision and values and have a clear purpose and are focused on those things tend to create that buzz around them. And you've spoken to something probably that most organizations are talk about a lot at the moment has difficulty with recruitment, and also difficult t with organic growth of their business. Often being mission vision values, lead solves a lot of those problems. And it's hard to do and to be consistent with and it takes work every second minute, an hour and day and week to always keep focused on that. And I think sometimes it can be just easy, it's sometimes just the easier way to just focus on KPIs and profits and things rather than make the harder decisions to stay online with mission and vision. Sure, thoughts on that? Yeah, like, at the end of the day, regardless of whether you're a charity non for profit company, whatever your legal structure and operational structure, every organization needs to be profitable at the end of the day. But there is different ways of going about it. And as you said, like we there with a mission focused organization and values based, if you're focusing on the people who are working for you, and the people you're delivering the services to, and really nail down on the quality of that, then what I found, and what I've learned from a lot of really great organizations out there is the bottom line will then sort itself out. And I mean, the amount of money that we save on not having to recruit the amount of money that is money that we can then spend on training or other supports that we can have for our staff, and there's this sick leave, there's less, not that we we encourage people to be vulnerable and be and look after the health and well being but people are really happy. Generally, with what we're doing. And it's it's a different way, it's not for everyone. But it's it's proving very popular in terms of the the amount of people that are wanting to get involved with us, both as contractors and and as employees. And I'll, I'll just go back to the the voluntary contribution that you you brought up forfeit. So it's a look, it's a different way of doing things. So it's a contribute if you can basis, so we understand that a lot of people who will be using the village, healthy change village.com will not have the funding or support or whatever else. And that's one of the the key, that's one of the key areas where we're looking at targeting. So that's fine. It's if people do have funding in the means and they're using the videos regularly, they're where we're asking for a voluntary contribution if they can, and because it's not an N di es project, it's it's just a health and wellbeing portal that's there for everyone. It means that self and Blaine in plan manage participants can use their, their funding towards it. And also they don't need to sign a service agreement or anything like that to to access the services. All they need is a an email address to access it and, and that's just so we can ensure that people have seen the h&s safety video before undertaking the video activities. So it's a it's a really interesting area because traditionally when you service and people you're assessing the people in front of you but when we're doing pre recorded videos, it's a different kettle of fish where we need to make sure we're doing as much as possible to minimize the risks for people over the other side and, and we do a lot of work on the back end of of when we get all the videos from the presenters. They go through a very strict approval process and go through a lot of editing as well to make the video as accessible as possible for people using it. Yeah, and for context of people listening like I've jumped on to the website here on the three screens that I'm operating on. So I'm on healthy change village calm and top right hand corner on desktop, I've contribute here, if you can in brackets, which is really lovely, just to give context of what this looks operationally for people listening, and then I come on to the contribute page, and there's a one off contribution, but then there's also a monthly subscription option for people. And there's some question and answers there for people to delve deeper into, how much would you recommend I contribute? Can this be paid out of India is? And you've answered that a little bit? Previously, but it's, yeah, it's definitely a completely different way of going about things. And this sort of further leads into like being so mission and vision and, and purpose orientated, that leads people to feeling like they want to contribute as well. You may hear my three year old daughter COVID, safe at home. Yeah, so yeah, welcome to listen into that sounds entertaining, there's, look, it's been interesting, because we estimated that less than 5% of people would actually contribute. And that's, that's proving to be the case. And that's fine. Just what we need is a lot of papers that 5% based off like industry statistics that normal, there's not really many industry statistics for this, because it really hasn't been done. It was basically based off my research from other organizations that have had like a voluntary contribution, I guess, that hasn't been done too much, as far as I know, in the sector. But we that we we rely on the contributions to keep the the whole thing running. So what we need then is a lot of people using it. So if you can imagine, like 5% of people using the site and the amount of work that we're doing on the back end, and to get the presenters and whatever else, it's it's a lot of work that goes into it. So, so we're hoping to make it sustainable solely off the contributions. And the, the content will always be free for people to access. If need be, we will look at corporate partnerships with organizations that are allowed with our values to help fund this and possibly some grants as well. But as you're well aware, you don't want to have to rely upon grants to to exist as an organization because it's not sustainable. You can never rely on grant said, kind of like a bonus to do some more things with what you want to what you have already there. So and you spoke a little bit. Before we started, I think we know we chatted for about six minutes or something before New said, there's a bit of a plan towards the end of the year to sort of you know more like this, maybe this has been a bit of a soft launch so far. And then you're starting to gear up with more content to then really push the platform. Yeah, so at the moment, we've got about 24 presenters on the site, most of them hunter base, we also have some national organizations like the black dog Institute, we also have that sugar movement, we're in discussions at the moment that the Heart Foundation are doing some video content as well. But what we're trying to do is just to build more content at the moment. So we have about 75 videos up on the platform. But we're adding, as I mentioned before, new presenters and videos each week, so I never did about five new videos. So we just we just want to make sure that there's something on there for everyone so that people will log on to the site and see what they want to see and then come back on to say what other updates are what are the things that are on there for them that could appeal to them but also to their friends or, or someone that's basically in need of a health and well being support out there. So we we will be at the moment, we've just done a couple of things with local media outlets, but we're looking at doing some things with some national outlets later on this year. And also ramping up some of the social media side of things as well to get this project at some more people. So yeah, fantastic. Like I I love it. We're starting to diversify a little bit of what we're doing as well. So like I feel them being aware of what you guys have been doing but then seeing the village as well like it felt like a I felt really at home with that idea. And just because, you know we provide our allied health services across our community here across the Central Coast Hannah port Stevens. However, we do want to extend you know, our mission and vision beyond that, but we're really passionate about face to face services across our region and being Yeah, across the Central Coast and the 100 Port Stephens, like I've said, however, we believe that we can extend some of what we're doing digitally. So we've got our online manual handling course that's went out, and we'll have some training and education across the the sector there. So I really loved how you're able to extend the services and what you're doing yet beyond just the region that we're delivering in already. How can it be you, I was gonna say, to use the example of your team, like how it could be used. So your team, I'm guessing it or going out to see people at most every day, but But sometimes, like once a week, or once a fortnight, or once a month. So one of the ideas is, is that they could use the videos on this platform to assist people outside of the the sessions that they're there face to face. And as we know, like face to face is is more engaging, and is a really nice way to meet the individual demands as well. But what we're asking is that if, if health professionals have, like I mentioned before, it is a particular shortage or something that's not available, then please let us know. But there's literally things on here to help people manage their health and well being on on the holistic front, not just like the physio therapy, or or ot movement front, there's lots of other things to help them manage their, their eating habits to their exercise habits, their mindfulness sessions. And, but just to give you an example of some of the mindfulness sessions we have on here we have we have a couple of different meditation instructors, we have art therapy, we have music therapy, we have pottery, and new things coming up all the time. And then we've also got lots of movement and strength videos as well. And a lot of those, also for people with restricted mobility, and also wheelchair friendly activities as well. So basically each and that's the standout that it's so accessible. Yeah, that's right. So this, there's a lot of content that people can access out there. For like the general population, or whatever else that is quite often. I'm not going to be reckless Hemsworth program is not suitable for everybody, you guys. Yeah, it's and it's and it's quite reckless, to be honest, in terms of how its presented, because I'm not talking about Chris Hemsworth. In particular, I To be honest, I don't I've seen an ad is his training sessions. But but this is specifically targeting people of all ages of all abilities. And we do a lot of the back end to make it more accessible. So with each video has a description has a difficulty writing one, two, or three, not beginner, intermediate or advanced, because that's, that's very condescending for a lot of people who may or may be entity to beginner, because of their restricted mobility or whatever else, at least to start with. And, and I guess that's where it's different as well, because we're focusing on people's abilities, not necessarily their disabilities, and what they can do with the right people to support them and the right environment around them. We said, we've seen it a lot on the healthy change challenge program. And we're trying to replicate that as much as we can, on the healthy change village or the village platform. So that people can realize that, yeah, they can do like a lot of things that they've wanted to do, it's just a matter of accommodating it, and the people to be willing to sort of think outside the square bit sometimes. And the really cool thing as well is that a lot of their presenters on the village website are not NCIS providers. So we basically, it's with the program, we go out to find the best organizations out there. And quite often they haven't previously worked in the sector before or never worked with people of all abilities. And a lot of the feedback we get is that their favorite session of the week is when they're they're training with the crew, because it's as you talked about before, when you saw them at the Expo, it's such a fun environment around them. And that's why it really works really well with the mental health space as well. I'm quite surprised. The mental health and in all abilities space haven't been combined together more because it's such a beautiful dynamic between the two, what we've found is people with, with higher academic abilities coming onto the program are teaching some of the other people to understand the health concepts that we're trying to teach them that gives them a sense of purpose and a reason to get out of bed if they're they're sort of struggling a bit. But then the supports go both ways. because quite often if people aren't necessarily in have the highest academic abilities, then their emotional intelligence is often really high and and they're the people that are great for like running the team dynamic and getting the group fired up to try a different task or to challenge themselves to try to try something You and it's it's really nice to see and cool to see and fascinating to see that the different things that they're coming up with to try not just from a, an exercise and activity perspective, but also from a mindfulness and especially on the eating front that the guys are coming up with some some clangers like it's the one of the latest things was organs on the program. So they've they've tried all the different animals and different vegetables and whatever else. And it's kind of like a, I call it like a positive peer pressure, almost because it's like a, it's a fun team environment where a lot of the people coming onto the program or trying these things have never, I've never been in a group environment before. Quite often, they're socially isolated, for whatever reason. So even being amongst other people is quite a big thing. But because it's very safe and fun, they and they going out to all these places together. It's it's and doing things not only for themselves, but also for the teammates, it really changes the dynamic of what people are trying and saying what they're they're capable of. Yeah, it's, it's just fantastic. And like everything I would prompt people to like, reflect on what we've been talking about. And it's probably a common theme through the podcast episodes, and the ones I've recorded so far that will come out in the future of people that are mission, vision and values focused and purpose driven. Things just flow easily. And innovation flows easily. And common terms and health care often that Consumer Directed or shared decision making. But these things that all concepts of just putting the person first that you're supporting, and touching back on what you said at the start of like, you know, certain consultants said that this is not the way that it should be done? Well, they're often focused on what the result should be, or what the KPI or the outcome possibly is from a business venture, rather than looking at the Consumer Directed need the unmet need of a community, etc. And then looking Yes, of course, is this a sustainable mission? And how do we make that work? But I liked of what you've said multiple times have we do things a different way? Yeah, interesting gets the come at it in the opposite direction instead of going. Okay, I think the nd is is a great growing sector. Okay, what can we do within there? That was never what this has been about, this has been about how are we meeting an unmet need and doing something differently? Yeah, and just because something hasn't been done before, doesn't mean it can't be done. And, and one of the really cool things is, is the different backgrounds of people who are coming in to work with us like, so we don't necessarily like think it's a great thing for people who worked in the sector before because quite often, if, if people have been really passionate and cared about the people and whatever else, they've sort of been come quite disenchanted with the the organization's they've been working for before, they felt like they're banging their head against a brick wall. That's that's how I felt, before I started this as a separate organization, because the service provider I was working for wasn't really open to change as much. So. So it's really nice to have that flat structure where people coming to work with us have all different backgrounds with all different ideas of things they'd like to try. And we really encourage people as much as possible, whether it's their first day or they've been with us for five years, they've all got a voice and, and we're really want. And also, that's the same for the challenges coming on to the program as well. So we were always open to new ideas, we want to be continually innovative in what we're doing and offering and that's part of the variety of like, routine for anyone is kind of boring feeders doing the same thing all the time, like that does to a small percentage of the population. But by and large people want to experience new things and try new things. And quite often it's just been the case that people haven't had the platform or opportunity to do that. To even like give a good example of that the amount of people that have said to me, especially people with Asperger's or autism like oh, no, they they love routine. They love doing the same thing all the time. We've found the direct opposite that their eyes just light up when they're trying new things just like anyone and we don't we don't focus on what like I talked about before on what their their disabilities are wages focused on what what they like to do, what they can do and what they could do. If if they win with the right support environment and team around them.