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Mansfield Constructions
MASS Operation Gamechanger
In January 2022 we moved our gear onto site to commence the first of the internal roads, bulk earthworks and construction of the building pads for Mansfield Autism Statewide Services Operation Gamechanger.
Operation Gamechanger is a project transforming a 100 acre farm in Mansfield, into a one of a kind facility including school campus, residents for students, respite and crisis care, family camps, equine therapy centre, swimming pool, walking and bike riding tracked and professional training facilities.
Flash forward to July 2024, and we are finishing our final items off and leaving site. Its bittersweet leaving site after 2.5 years.
We have assisting with a wide range of works including bulk earthworks of site, construction of building pads, internal roads, installation of services, landscaping and construction, prep and seal 13,900 square metres of internal roads.
We have thoroughly appreciated the challenge (some days) and support that we received from Ian, Bec and team at MASS during this project, as well as the assistance from the amazing team at NESD, all suppliers, contractors and of course our legendary crew to demonstrating what MC are capable of
— Mansfield Constructions
June 2024 compared to one of our first site photos back in 2022.
Link to Facebook Post: MASS Operation Gamechanger 💥 In January... - Mansfield Constructions
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]]>Lake High – Great Victorian Walk for Autism will be held 22 March 2025, following the success of the inaugural event in April 2024.
Participants choose an ~15km or ~30km challenge, in teams of 2 to 10, along the picturesque Great Victorian Rail Trail in Mansfield. The event is raising funds for Operation Gamechanger, our exciting expansion project toward a Centre of Excellence Therapeutic Care Farm.
About 150 walkers joined us in 2024 and among the early registrants was the ‘Inverloch Autism Support Group,’ with Tona O’Connor expressing her motivation: “I am walking Lake High to support families like ours. For the past 6 years, MASS has provided crucial support for our son and our entire family.” Tona and her family have benefited from family camps and in-home services provided by Mansfield Autism.
Register your interest now and get your friends together for a great walk, sensational cause and perfect excuse for a weekend getaway to the High Country. Please spread the word among avid walkers in your network.
There is no minimum fundraising agreement and anything extra you raise will be very appreciated.
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]]>A big year for our expansion. In mid-December we have all our buildings up with roofs on, work starting on solar panels, power lines have been dropped underground, and work has started on the pathways and basic grass landscaping.
We hope to be able to start offering services from mid 2024. We can't wait to show you our new facilities.
We still have lots of fundraising to do to fit our and furnish the buildings, have better landscaping and install all the civils - check out our key fundraising event for 2024 here: Lake High, Great Victorian Walk for Autism.
Family Cabins
- All twelve cabins built
- Roads, carparks and concrete pathways commenced
- Retaining wall east face of road cutting commenced
- Furniture placed in a cabin for demonstration purposes
Multipurpose Activity Centre
- The Multipurpose Activity Centre (the MAC) is built and at lockup stage
- Arena frame and roof complete - lights, sprinklers, and surface treatment still to come
- Services roughed in
School
- The roof is on!
- Framed, roofed and services roughed in
- Practical completion target July 2024
- Landscaping still to come
Student Residences
- All three residences are built
- Finished ground levels, paths, patios, roads, car parks and basic landscaping
Pods
- All three pods built.
- Service connections complete
- Work started on decks, verandas, gates, fences, and remedial works internal and external
Meeting Place
- The hut is framed and roofed and internals largely complete
- Power, reticulated water and storm water roughed in
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]]>We are pleased to share that we have appointed a Principal and Assistant Principal for our school, starting in 2024:
Principal: Kerri Grant
Assistant Principal: Elizabeth Howie
Congratulations to Kerri Grant and Elizabeth Howie who have new roles in our change to school leadership. Kerri has been appointed as School Principal for both the Mansfield Campus and the new farm campus. Many of you will know that Kerri has worked across all areas of MASS in a range of roles and provides calm and clear leadership that she will bring to her role as Principal.
Lizzie joins Kerri as Assistant Principal. Lizzie has worked at MASS as a teacher for 3 years and has worked in a variety of roles at schools in Australia and the UK. Lizzie is well respected amongst our school community for her dedication to teaching and learning and creating an environment to see our students thrive.
As our school community grows, Kerri and Lizzie are looking forward to proudly supporting staff, clients, and families with their growth, development, and autism journey.
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]]>Lake High is a new walking event for women by Mansfield Autism Statewide Services on the Friday of the Anzac Day weekend, 26 April 2024. Participants choose a 15km or 30km challenge, in teams of 2 to 10, along the picturesque Great Victorian Rail Trail in Mansfield. The event is raising funds for Operation Gamechanger, the exciting expansion project that will deliver a Centre of Excellence Therapeutic Care Farm.
Among the early registrants is the 'Inverloch Autism Support Group,' with Tona O’Connor expressing her motivation: "I am walking Lake High to support families like ours. For the past 6 years, MASS has provided crucial support for our son and our entire family." Tona and her family have benefited from family camps and in-home services provided by Mansfield Autism.
Adding a touch of prestige to the event is Lake High ambassador Victoria Mitchell, Mansfield local, and dual Olympian. Victoria will share valuable training tips in the lead-up to the event, to help you get ready to smash your challenge.
Register now and treat the walk as the perfect excuse for a weekend getaway to the High Country with your girlfriends, contributing to a great cause, indulging in delicious food, embarking on adventures in the mountains or on the lake, and breathing in the fresh High Country air. Please spread the word among avid walkers in your network.
Early bird registrations are open with a discounted entry of $90. Travel to the start point and a welcome drink on completion included. There is no minimum fundraising agreement and anything extra you raise will be very appreciated.
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]]>We are delighted to announce the creation of a new team: the MASS Allied Health Team. This new team will focus on improving the capacity of all at MASS to understand and support Allied Health therapies with our clients and within MASS.
Here are some of the things this team will work on:
- We will be looking at ways to continue to develop internal training using MASS Learn, the newly launched online learning site for all staff.
- We will scope and trial a new program to build independent living skills for young people with autism.
- We will be continuing to provide all staff with ongoing professional development around speech, language & communication within the context of autism.
- We will be considering how to best introduce Allied Health Assistants to the team.
The Allied Health Team will be made up of:
- Sophie Walker, Team Leader. Sophie will take on the role as Team Leader of the Allied Health Team. Sophie has worked at MASS for eight years, first as a MAP and the as a Team Leader of both the Adult Services and Local Programs Teams. She will step down from Adult Services team but continue as Team Leader of Local Programs.
- Fiona Pelusi, Speech and Language Therapy. Fiona is a Speech Pathologist and Early Childhood Educator with a broad range of knowledge and experience. She has returned to MASS to be part of a team aiming to build all staff’s knowledge and skills around speech & language development but particularly, augmented and alternative communication practices.
- Brooke Ibbott, Occupational Therapy. Brooke has been a MAP at MASS for over 5 years. She has worked with families and also mentored new MAPs who are starting their journey with MASS. She is a qualified Occupational Therapist and is looking forward to moving back into a dedicated OT role, where she will collaborate with staff across all MASS services to increase clients' occupational performance and independence in all areas of their lives.
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We are pleased to publish our 2022 Annual Report. The Annual Report shares our achievements over the year as well as a snapshot of each of our services. It also has some beautiful images of our amazing clients and shares some of the feedback we have received.
Our CEO Simone says "All of what was achieved in 2022 was only possible due to the incredible staff we have. I thank our clients and their families for working closely with MASS and the value they place on our services.
I feel we are well placed for the enormous task we have ahead of completing the farm and transitioning our services there. The next 12-18 months will be quite transformative as we start to see our vision of delivering an Australian first Centre of Excellence Therapeutic Care Farm turn into a reality. On behalf of all the people who will benefit from this, I thank everyone involved for the work you have done, and continue to do, to make this happen."
Click here to read the annual report: Annual Report 2022
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]]>Family Cabins are almost done
This is where families will stay when they come for Family Camps; three bedroom, two bathroom accessible cabins which all have beautiful views of Mount Buller. As the farm is still a construction site we can only start offering family camps from here in 2024.
Pods
Our resilient two bedroom 'pods' are also almost finished. These will increase our capacity to offer respite and crisis care.
Student residences
Each of our three residences will house eight students each, more than tripling our capacity to offer Term Placements. We expect these to be finished in mid 2023.
Activity centre
We are clearing the pad for the multipurpose activity space which will include offices, an activity centre and a commercial kitchen. A 60x30m open covered area will provide all weather outdoor space for recreation and activities.
School
Simone and Judy jump for joy on the finished pad, ready for construction to begin. We expect this to be finished in May 2024.
Meeting hut
The building permit application for the Meeting Hut has been submitted and the project is expected to be completed by June 2023.
Civil works
The Civil Works team are currently focused on road network, building sites, power, water, sewer and telecommunications.
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]]>All twelve family cabins are up! This is where families will stay when they come for Family Camps; three bedroom, two bathroom accessible cabins which all have beautiful views of Mount Buller.
Our resilient two bedroom 'crisis pods' were built offsite and have been transported to the farm. These three crisis pods will increase our capacity to offer respite and crisis care.
The slabs have been poured and the frames are up for our student residences; three residences that can house eight students each, more than tripling .
Thanks to a generous donation from the Dyson Foundation we have refurbished the existing barn to create a useful multipurpose space.
Operation Gamechanger is supported by the Victorian Government and Australian Government.
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]]>Did you know? In the past 3 months, our Autism Practitioners (MAPs) have visited 146 families across Victoria.
Our practitioners crisscross across the state to visit families in regional towns such as Warrnambool, Bairnsdale, Swan Hill, Echuca as well as many suburbs across Melbourne. We currently have 19 MAPs who are all registered with the NDIS as Behaviour Support Practitioners. Our practitioners come from a range of backgrounds and experiences within education and allied health services. Our uniqueness comes from living with families and being in the home for the early morning and evening routines when families often need the most support. COVID slowed us down but we are now back on the road, clocking up the kilometres and spending time with our families.
The ‘week of a MAP’ usually starts by loading the bags into our ‘mobile offices’ (aka cars) and hitting the road to our family’s destination across Victoria. The drives for us may consist of podcasts, sing along to tunes or making calls to check in with families, support coordinators, teachers or our friends just to pass the time!
After checking in to our hotels, motels, cabins or family’s spare bedroom, we get to work chatting with parents or carers over a cup of tea and wait until the kids gets home from school. At this point you will often see us looking for the schedule to follow along with, whether it be a whiteboard, PECs chart or written on paper. Each child, family and household is different and even the activities on the schedule from one night to the next can be a complete contrast. We thrive on being flexible and never miss a moment to add a game of UNO or Spot it to the ‘plan’. One night, we may tag along to observe afterschool activities or community access with support workers, before coming home to help a child try a piece of carrot for dinner or brush their teeth more independently using visual charts. The goals of our visit may be practicing social skills, eating programs, toileting, addressing challenging behaviours, establishing sleep patterns or a combination of all… No matter what it is, we arrive prepared to give the family all of our best strategies, or simply a friendly ear to listen to concerns, laugh about stories or talk about who the best football team is!
If we’re needed, we wake early and arrive again the next morning with coffee in hand, ready to master the morning routine using the schedules, time timers or reward charts for getting ready and to school on time. During the day, while the kids are at school and if we have finished our observations in this setting, you might find us exploring the town, writing reports, making phone calls, making visuals and finding resources to use once the kids get home from school again. We eat, sleep, visit homes, write reports, make resources and repeat.
By the end of the week, we MAPs are riding the highs with the wins and the lows with the ‘challenges’ alongside all the mums, dads, grandparents, aunts, siblings and unique individuals on the roller coaster of living with ASD.
We say our goodbyes with a blend of joy for the weekend and nerves for how things will go after we leave – hoping that our strategies will sustain in the hands of the parents, carers, teachers and children, all to be revised on our next visit. And until then, back in our mobile offices we go, singing along to the radio and gearing up to do it all again, but completely different, the next week!
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