IMAGE: TRACY NAUGHTON
PROFILE
It’s good to care
Aged care and disability support worker Candice Dover had a vision and a plan, and with hard work she made it happen. WORDS: Leigh Robshaw.
C
aloundra local Candice Dover, 34, is a single mother of two who has achieved extraordinary success in the past three years. She is the founder of Candice Care, a national government-approved, not-for-profit aged care and disability support service provider
that began operations in Caloundra in 2017. On November 13, she opened Candice’s House at Moffat Beach. The fourth house to open nationwide, it offers people living with a disability, as well as the ageing community, access to boutique respite facilities and personalised services.
“Our business plan was to, in three years, be able to support 50 people with a team of 20,” Ms Dover says. “We’re now supporting 250 people with a team of over 110 staff.” Not only has she established a flourishing not-for-profit, she is also heavily involved in volunteering in the community and helping out with her children’s sporting activities. “I work 10- to 12-hour days,” she says. “Connor is five and Oscar is nine. We’ve gotten really involved with the surf club. I volunteer patrol and my boys come along to that. The boys are great; they come with me to work quite often. They understand the importance of what we do. My nine-year-old can do CPR because of the volunteer work.” Originally from the Gold Coast, Ms Dover began working in community services during the school holidays when she was 15, helping out in daycare centres that had children with special needs. “From a young age, I’ve always loved kids, but I found going into daycare, kids who had more challenging behaviours seemed to work really well with me.” After she left school, she returned and worked as the community and cultural liaison officer. “Our family is Aboriginal, so I was helping kids transition from remote communities to the school. My role there was to work with Aboriginal students and students who were at risk of dropping out of school, continue their engagement or find alternative pathways for them. I found it really rewarding. One of the students I had who was always in trouble and getting suspended went on to be vice captain of the school in Year 12.” From there, she worked in Melbourne, Moree and Dubbo, before moving back to the Gold Coast. “While I was on the Gold Coast I went back to uni and was working for an amazing company, Red Inc, down in Lismore. They were started by a mum whose child had a disability. Seeing what the team had done down there drove me to want to do something up here.”
After Ms Dover moved to the Sunshine Coast, her brother was coward punched on the Gold Coast and spent time in a brain care unit. “Trying to find the right support for Thom and seeing him in hospital most days, we saw how much it impacted people’s recovery when they had no recovery and no support. I was working in aged care at the time and a gentleman had hit his head and been in hospital for two years because he had no family and nowhere to go. “A friend of mine said, ‘why don’t you start your own service?’ They pushed me to create a business plan, find an investor and start my own support service so we started as an NDIS provider.” Candice Care provides the support services while Candice’s House is a sister organisation, providing respite housing. The
“We’re now supporting 250 people with a team of over 110 staff” new Moffat Beach house provides short-term respite accommodation upstairs, with services downstairs.“The Moffat Beach house is set up more for day programs and activities,”says Ms Dover. “We have a yogi who’s coming in three times a week running yoga classes, an art therapist, cooking, gardening, an occupational therapist and a personal trainer. Everything is wheelchair accessible. “We’re looking at opening two or three houses on the Sunshine Coast. There’s a massive need here and we’re working closely with other organisations to provide support. We’re opening our first supported independent living space in Caloundra next.”
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