Adversity can challenge but also extend us. At Brain Injury SA (BISA) the year now completed has demonstrated exactly that.
Throughout this period, I have been very pleased to see BISA continue to achieve growth of approximately 30% in its services and its reach to the brain injury community of South Australia. Important to the Board has been maintaining a steady focus on the role BISA plays in the community and the contribution it has the potential to make in enabling our service participants achieve their goals.
This has required flexibility to respond to the demands made by the operating environment where things have been changing at a moment’s notice. The combination of growth and environmental uncertainty have required a level of commitment by staff to sustaining focus on service quality. We are proud to have come through this year with demonstrated achievements in service provision, financial health and a highly capable and committed staff.
At the beginning of the financial year, we had become experienced in handling ways to deliver services within the restrictions imposed on us by COVID-19, a challenge we faced for the remainder of the year. Uncertainty made planning for our major events difficult. The highly successful BISA launch of Brain Injury Awareness week was delivered with rich content and strong participation in a mixed face to face and online delivery formats. This important event connects us with the brain injury community and provides an annual focus on the importance of growing understanding of brain injury within the broader community. In planning and developing services we recognise the importance of communicating with those who use our services. Our consultation survey, now completed for a second year, tells us strongly how people living with brain injury want more community understanding of its impact on them and their families. Sharing information and providing education on brain injury to a wide audience continue to be important elements to our work.
It has been my great pleasure to see the value of bringing more members of the brain injury community closer to the Board discussions by creating two new Board traineeship roles. The Board created this opportunity for members of the brain injury community to engage at a Board level when they may not have felt equipped or confident to do so. The success of this program is twofold. It helps to develop a future generation of leaders with a personal experience of brain injury, whilst providing a stronger participant voice in Board discussions and guiding future direction for BISA.
I would like to thank my fellow Board members and BISA staff for continuing to focus on delivering outstanding quality and caring services to our clients during this challenging year. We also thank our clients for choosing BISA as a service provider and emphasise our commitment to keep servicing our community.
The future will undoubtedly present BISA with many challenges. I am confident in the strength of our organisation to succeed and to fulfill our purpose of enabling people embrace life after brain injury.
Vladimir Malcik
Chair of Board