Dr Kate Barnett OAM
Strategic Advisor
Dr Kate Barnett established Stand Out Report in late 2016, following ten years as Deputy Director of the Australian Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre (WISeR) at The University of Adelaide, prior to which she operated two national social research consultancies - Kate Barnett and Associates and Culture Matters (specialising in cultural diversity management) from 1988 to 2006.
Kate Barnett’s key area of specialisation is ageing – including positive ageing, aged care and culturally inclusive aged care. She has strong qualitative research and evaluation skills, and extensive experience in working with governments and community organisations at national and State level. A significant amount of Kate Barnett’s work in the ageing and aged care field involves research that informs the design and evaluation of innovative models of care and service. Since late 2019 Kate has been the Australian Research Lead for a cross-national study of loneliness and social connection in retirement living communities. This is a collaboration involving Life Care, the University of Bath and UK retirement living provider Guild Living.
In recognition of her contribution to the fields of ageing and aged care, Kate Barnett has been honoured with an Order of Australia Medal (2018) and a Flinders University Distinguished Alumni Medal (2017).
A significant component of Stand Out Report’s work to date has involved environmental scanning - analysing research findings, aged care policy and service design in a climate of reform, and their implications for aged care providers now and in the future. Within this have been a number of projects analysing Baby Boomers’ expectations of ageing and the role services can play in supporting a positive experience of growing old. Key to this is co-design and Kate works regularly with experts in this field, particularly the Global Centre for Modern Ageing and COTASA’s Plug-In.
One of Kate Barnett’s research interests involves technology and how to maximise its potential contribution to ageing well. She was the Lead Writer of the Technology Roadmap for the Aged Care Sector and continues to work with the Aged Care Industry IT Council (ACIITC) in the implementation of the Roadmap. In 2019 this included updating the literature review that informed the Roadmap, and writing a submission to the Royal Commission on Aged Care Quality and Safety on the role of technology in enhancing aged care services. In 2020 Kate is working with the Council as the Research Lead for the first national digital maturity assessment of aged and community care providers and writing the environmental scan accompanying this major project.
Kate is also acknowledged as an expert on the Teaching Nursing Home model, that is, partnerships between a) aged care providers and universities to undertake research designed to improve quality of care, and between b) aged care and education providers to provide best practice student clinical education and workforce development. From 2012 to 2015 she led the national evaluation of TRACS (Teaching Research Aged Care Services), Australia’s first government funded program supporting the Teaching Nursing Home model, and involving 16 partnerships. Kate continues to work closely with TRACS providers and is part of an international network of researchers and service providers applying the model. In 2019, in response to interest expressed by Commissioners in the model, she wrote a submission to the Royal Commission on Aged Care Quality and Safety on the role of TRACS in building quality aged care services.
In 2014 she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship which enabled her to study the model in north America where it originated in the 1990s.
