COMPASS 2711 Future Planning User Guide
- June 16, 2024
- COMPASS
Table of Contents
Future planning
- Future planning
- Why plan for your future?
- How to future plan
- Reducing the risk of elder abuse
- Barriers to future planning
- Find out more
Future planning
Australians today are living longer – on average, 30 years longer – than they
did a century ago. With those extra years to look forward to and enjoy, being
able to live actively and independently in wellbeing and security becomes even
more important.
Thinking in advance about how to make that possible is called ‘future
planning’. It means earlier planning for these longer lives and taking steps
now to maximise independence and wellbeing in older age. It empowers people to
ensure their later years can be lived the way they’d like them to be.
Future planning now empowers you to maximise your wellbeing, control, security
and dignity later, giving you the most opportunity to enjoy your senior years
the way you want.
Planning for a secure, independent future can start today.
Why plan for your future?
Older age may involve new decisions about medical and health care, finanes,
and lifestyle. Ideally, you’ll be able to continue making those decisions
yourself as you age.
However, it doesn’t work out that way for everyone. A person’s decision-making
ability (known as their ‘capacity’) may be affected by illnesses, accidents or
age-related decline. It can happen suddenly or gradually, and it may be
temporary or permanent.
If your decision-making capacity diminishes and you haven’t recorded any
instructions, wishes or preferences in advance, your financial, health and
lifestyle choices will be left to other people to decide. Those people may or
may not be the ones you’d like to have make your decisions. They may or may
not know, understand or respect your values and preferences.
But with future planning, you are in charge. You choose who will make
decisions on your behalf if you need them to, and your chosen decision-maker
will know what you would like done and how you’d like it done.
Think about some of the decisions that may need to be made in your later
years:
- Where will you live if you can’t remain in your own home?
- When and how will your bills for food, care services, utilities and doctors be paid?
- Which medical treatments will you have?
- Can you continue your hobbies and interests?
- How will you get to see friends and family?
- What options will be taken to provide end-of-life care?
Maybe you will become unable to decide some or any of these yourself. If you haven’t made a record of how you’d like your decisions to be made, what decisions are people likely to make for you?
How to future plan
There are just four steps involved in future planning:
- thinking about what you want older age to look like
- talking to people you trust about what you want and asking for their help
- writing down what is important to you and any specific decisions you’ve made
- formalising your decisions in legally binding documents
These documents include powers of attorney and health care directives. They
record your authorisation for nominated people to act as your decision-makers
if you need them to, putting you in charge of choosing your decision-makers
and specifying any particular instructions, values and preferences that you
want.
Introduction to enduring power of attorney
To ensure that your financial affairs will always be looked after as you would
want them to be, you can decide to make an enduring power of attorney.
For more infomation visit the Introduction to enduring power of attorney
section on Compass.info
To be most effective, your future planning should cover three areas:
Financial
Financial future planning ensures that someone you’ve chosen – someone who
knows and respects your values and preferences – is legally authorised to make
your decisions for you or to assist you in making them.
Examples of decisions include paying your weekly bills, for example, or
enabling your access to aged care services by arranging the sale of your home
or property.
Medical
Medical future planning can involve steps such as authorising someone to be
your decisionmaker in relation to your medical and health options and making
instructions about what medical treatments you would like to receive (or
refuse) if you should need end-of-life care.
These planning documents are often called by names such as ‘advance care
health directives’.
Personal
This type of future planning provides for matters such as your living
arrangements, care needs, social interactions and lifestyle activities.
You might, for example, nominate decision-makers to help you continue your
hobbies. You could draw up a ‘family agreement’, which is a formal arrangement
with family members to share your home with them in return for them providing
care for you.
Family Agreements
A family agreement is an arrangement between an older person and someone else
regarding care and living arrangements.
For more infomation visit the Family Agreements section on Compass.info
Reducing the risk of elder abuse
At times, some people may act in ways that cause harm or distress to an older
person with whom they have some kind of trust relationship (for example, they
are the older person’s family member, carer, partner or friend).
The harmful acts may be unintentional or intentional. They may happen once, or
many times.
They may take different forms, such as psychological, financial or physical,
or even neglect of the older person’s needs.
Defining elder abuse
The abuse of older people is complex and confronting. Understanding it starts
by defining it.
For more infomation visit the Defining elder abuse section on Compass.info
Older people have the same right to receive respect, care and fulfillment of
their needs as any other person, but they may not always understand those
rights or know how to protect them. Future planning can help to prevent elder
abuse by removing some of the risk factors. By capturing legally binding
decisions that others must abide by, future planning can enable older people
to maintain dignity and control over their own lives and may prevent their
exploitation when they are most vulnerable.
Future planning is a readily available tool for helping to safeguard an older
person from elder abuse.
Barriers to future planning
Being unaware or not understanding
For many reasons, people may not be aware of future planning or know what it
means. Some people may never have heard of it. Some may think that making a
will is all they need to do, or they expect their doctor or lawyer to mention
it when they get older. For some, it’s traditional that families and
communities look after their elders’ needs.
Some people aren’t sure where to get information and advice about future
planning. If information is only available in English, some people may have
trouble understanding it. And because different laws and processes apply
across the states and territories, the available information may be confusing.
Not wanting to think about getting old, getting sick or dying
Researchers have found that many people avoid talking about the reality that
they will one day pass away and the possibility of them losing mental and/or
physical health as they age. This reluctance can arise from spiritual or
cultural beliefs (for example, that whatever happens is ‘God’s will’ or that
talking about death makes it more likely to happen soon); denial or fear of
death and sickness; or an attitude that future planning can wait until it’s
needed.
Some older people assume that their adult children will look after their
future needs when the time comes, yet they have never spoken to their children
about what they would want to have done. The adult children, meanwhile, don’t
want to offend or upset their ageing parents by bringing up illness and death
as topics for discussion.
Laws being unclear and inconsistent
Laws and processes for future planning vary from state to state across
Australia. This increases the likelihood that people may be confused by the
available information, even if they do try to access it.
For example, every state and territory has its own forms for setting up future
planning tools like enduring powers of attorney or advance health care
directives – and the terms used to refer to these tools are just as
inconsistent.
Family factors
Sometimes people don’t see a need to make formal planning documents because
they assume that younger family members know and will look after what they
want. But if there have been no conversations about wishes and preferences,
the family can’t know.
Family dynamics, including conflict, can also deter people from deciding who
to appoint as decision-makers because, for example, they fear offending other
family members.
Issues with accessing legal advice
Some people face real or perceived barriers to accessing relevant legal
advice. This may come from beliefs that legal advice will be expensive; long-
held aversions to legal documents and lawyers; cultural practices (for
example, relying on family for support); or a lack of confidence in
understanding and asserting their rights.
Service providers not intervening
Although being in hospital or in frequent contact with their doctors would
seem to provide a good opportunity to get assistance and information about
future planning from the service providers, for many people this isn’t always
the case.
Medical and personal care providers may not always have the time or the
training to have these conversations with patients. Some may worry about
making their patients uncomfortable or that they simply don’t know enough
about future planning.
Worrying about tax implications
Another reason people avoid making future planning arrangements (such as a
‘family agreement’ to share their home with family members in return for care)
is uncertainty around the effect the arrangements may have on their tax
affairs or pension eligibility.
Some of the effects may be real and some perceived, or there may even be no
effect at all. However, the possibility of complicating a person’s tax or
pension status can be enough to put them off finding out about future
planning.
Find out more
| What’s stopping people from planning for a safe older age?
When people don’t plan for older age, they leave important decisions about
their futures in the hands of other people who may not know, understand, care
about, or respect their values.
This resource can be found on Compass.info
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| You Decide Who Decides: Making an enduring power for financial decisions
This booklet explains the process, provides useful tips on completing the
form, poses questions to consider when choosing the person who will act for
you in financial matters when you no longer have capacity, and includes
example wording and personal stories.
This resource can be found on Compass.info
| Future Planning Series – English
These videos provide vital information and insights, into planning ahead and
ensuring your wishes and values are understood.
This resource can be found on Compass.info
| Future planning in other languages
These videos provide vital information and insights, into planning ahead and
ensuring your wishes and values are understood.
This resource can be found on Compass.info
Disclaimer:
The information provided in this document is not a substitute for individual
legal advice.
Find the following at Compass.info
Made for all Australians regardless
of nationality, culture or language,
Compass is an inclusive website navigating elder abuse.
Compass is
an initiative of EAAA and funded by the Attorney-General’s Department
© Copyright EAAA Compass 2022.
References
Read User Manual Online (PDF format)
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