Attendees praised our Dying to Know Day Expo at the Fairfield Youth and Community Centre on 8 August, with 100 per cent of those surveyed saying they now feel ‘confident in making end-of-life plans and having conversations about death and dying’.
SWSPHN partnered with organisations, including South Western Sydney LHD and Fairfield City Council, to organise the free expo.
The event attracted 280 attendees, primarily from the Fairfield and Canterbury-Bankstown LGAs, 42 volunteers and 37 stalls, including SWSPHN’s stall which attracted 73 visitors, and provided valuable information and resources on advance care planning and the importance of making your healthcare preferences known.
Other stalls included the NSW Trustee and Guardian, Lifeline, Palliative Care NSW, NSW Multicultural Services and Ashes to Ashes.
Attendees had the opportunity to speak to stallholders, join eight information sessions on various end-of-life topics, enjoy light refreshments, and take home free information and showbags. In addition to information sessions in English, we also held sessions in Chinese, Vietnamese and Arabic for the first time.
Ninety per cent of attendees who were surveyed said they would attend another Dying to Know Day Expo in the future. In their feedback, they talked about how they benefited from the conversations with stallholders, and appreciated being able to speak to some stallholders in Vietnamese.
One hundred per cent of attendees who were surveyed now feel confident in making end-of-life plans and having conversations about death and dying. In their feedback, they said it was good to have solicitors and clinicians talking about planning for the future, they ‘learnt something from every session’ and it was good to have a session in Chinese.
Other feedback included: ‘We hope you will make this a permanent fixture, it is definitely a topic people feel the need to know more about, especially those from cultures not as familiar with the traditional Western ways of dealing with death and dying’.
Dying to Know Day is a national campaign to inspire you to begin to prepare for the inevitable, not with fear, but with purpose, love and a sense of legacy.
SWSPHN has developed a dementia and palliative care services directory which contains local, state and national services to guide families, carers and people living with dementia from diagnoses to end-of-life care.
Pictured above:
SWSPHN Integration and Priority Populations team members attended the expo. Left to right: Kate Noble, Mele Lokotui, Kirsty Young and Sofi Milosevic.
Pictured below:
Expo attendees appreciated the stalls and information sessions.
