Episode 4 - Support coordination with Collin Mullan Disability Aged Care Service Podcast

This conversation with Collin has been so informative. It was a long conversation packed with wisdom, so I will sum up the conversation and highlight the important points in the show notes.

Support coordination is one of the categories of funding that people will often see in their NDIS plan. It can be broken down into probably four key roles within support coordination. So there's level one, level two and level three support coordination. And there's also psychosocial recovery coaching, which is very similar. 

 Level 1 

It's usually under 24 hours a year. So very minimal work needs to be done. It's just a contact point.

 Level 2

The second level is called coordination of support. And that's what I do and what the vast majority of support coordinators do in NDIS. And that's a more detailed approach to helping people implement their plans. And it's got a big focus on capacity building. So allowing some assistance to, for participants to learn how to manage their own plans and engage their services.

 

Level 3

The third level is called specialist support coordination. That's for more complex needs. A specialist support coordinator is quite often an allied health professional or a social worker. So they've got some extra skills to deal with complex issues that might be people who are involved in the justice system and have drug and alcohol issues on top of their disability or maybe facing homelessness or have a very complex care team that needs to be coordinated.

Level 4

And then the fourth one that I mentioned was psychosocial recovery coaching. So that's a distinct focus on mental health. It's a lot more flexible with the support. 

 Support coordination is really a Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five job. Psychosocial recovery is a lot more flexible and can be provided outside of those hours, across weekends. It can be used in a crisis management situation. 

The vast majority of participants that are going to have support coordination is going to be at that level two coordination of support. And just to put people in the picture, about 40% of participants will have support, coordination, and funding. So it's not open to everybody, but you can ask for it. So if, if a participant feels that they need some help with their plan, particularly if it's their first plan, they can ask for support coordination to be put into that funding.

If people are struggling to implement their plan and they're not getting support from the agency or the LAC, they can always go back and ask for support coordination. They can put in a change of circumstances to say, I'm struggling with this, I can't get my services engaged, I need some help. Please give me a support coordinator. 

 

An analogy

 Entering NDIS territory is like going on a holiday to a foreign country where you don't understand the language. They have different customs, different laws, and different cultures. It's just new territory. The support coordinator is the tour guide. So they're going to try and get you the best experience possible. They're going to help you navigate unfamiliar territory. They are going to translate for you. They're going to help you avoid the pitfalls. And if you're in a foreign country and you want to go and visit a place, they'll go, no, no, no, let's not go at nine o'clock in the morning because everyone else will be there. Let's go at three o'clock in the afternoon, and you'll get a better view and experience. That's the role of the support coordinator to help guide you to get the best experience.

And it's also about minimizing risk as well. So ensuring that you get safe, quality services in place that you're protected from people who might defraud you or not provide the best services possible. So to go back to what you were saying, there are a few things that support coordinators do, and NDIS has a big list of what the role is, a little bit of a list of what the role isn't. So the primary function is to help facilitate the plan implem