Henry Zheng, a Master of Information Technology student at the University of Western Australia, recently contributed 100 hours to support the work of aged care services organisation Melville Cares, through a McCusker Centre for Citizenship internship.
“I initially applied for the McCusker Centre program just for the opportunity to get local work experience. At the time, I didn’t consider anything related to social impact for the community, but it turned out to be more than just work experience,” Henry said.
“I gained good project experience and built up my confidence, but the internship itself, along with great seminars and events, also fostered a reflective mindset and gave me a deeper understanding of social responsibility, changing my perspective on social problems and community engagement.”
Henry took on a project intern role working on Melville Cares’ Aged Care Unmet Need project, collecting data from reliable sources to create a demographic data set including a range of variables.
“My project looked at the needs of ageing people in a similar way to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” Henry said.
“While government funding supports aged care services, some ageing people’s needs for care are not met due to an imbalance of resourcing.
“I collected data on the number of aged residents in different suburbs by age groups, the number of residents living with dementia, socioeconomic data, and more. Based on the dataset I created visualisations, observed patterns and generated a research report with several dashboards. Finally, I reported on the findings to senior staff at Melville Cares.”
Melville Cares CEO Maria Davison said that Henry’s contribution had provided her team with insightful data.
“Henry has a lovely unassuming manner, and team members warmed to him quickly – they seemed to enjoy working with him, even if they didn’t necessarily understand what he was working on initially,” Ms Davison said.
“In his final presentation to the team, Henry successfully translated a great deal of data into relatable conclusions, and team members could easily understand the value of his data to decision-making.
“This was the intention of the project for Henry's placement. There are so many different factors to consider around services for older people living at home and where scarce resources can be best applied to make the biggest difference, and Henry had a real impact for our team which will help strengthen our service delivery,” Ms Davison said.
For Henry, presenting to the team was a highlight.
“I was honoured to have the chance to bring my findings to a team who are deeply committed to their work. Knowing my findings could help people brought me a great sense of achievement.
“The McCusker Centre internship was a great example of how university is not just about knowledge and textbooks, but a great platform to link people and planet and provide students with opportunities to face actual social issues and figure out ways to resolve them. We have the chance to bring our individual abilities and transfer them into power for change.”