Anglican Retirement Villages, Diocese of Sydney

Anglican Retirement Villages, Diocese of Sydney (ARV) is a not-for-profit public benevolent institution formed in 1959. This inception date places ARV as one of the founding entities of the social service now referred to as retirement or seniors living. Today, ARV has retained its distinctive Christian and social credentials, and serves some 6000 people across community care, independent living and assisted living services. With over 2000 staff and 30 sites across the greater Sydney region, ARV is one of the largest aged care providers in Australia.

History

Archbishop Howard Mowll and his wife Dorothy Mowll were instrumental in the cause to provide housing and food for missionaries returning from the overseas mission field who had neither family nor finance to support them in their retirement.

Structure

The organisation is owned and operated by the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, with which ARV retains strong ties, including a common mission and a central focus on evangelism. The board of Anglican Retirement Villages is appointed by the Archbishop of Sydney and the synod, and comprises 9-10 people. The current chair of ARV is Allan Fife, managing director of corporate advisory firm Fife Capital. The board in turn appoints a CEO to run the organisation. The current chief executive is Robin Freeman.

Current profile

ARV's vision is "Creating Communities of Christian Care". Care services are provided across Sydney in:

• Community care: including federal and state funded community programs, ARV funded programs and user pays funded programs. Growth in this area has been significant.
• Independent living: provision of a number of managed, secure communities for seniors to age in place in, within a supported environment to ensure that wherever possible, further moves to more intensive accommodation is avoided.
• Residential care: comprising both low (hostel) and high (nursing home) care this focuses on a number of key care needs including dementia, palliative care, rehabilitation and psycho-geriatric care.

Underpinning all care services ARV has also developed close working relationships with local Anglican parishes to ensure appropriate chaplaincy and Christian ministry services are visible and accessible throughout the organisation.