Support coordination: Lessons from the trenches – Question 15

Lessons from the trenches - panel members

• Miranda Purchase (MP) – Support Coordinator, MP Coordination
• Veronica Santomingo (VS) – Support Coordinator, Richmond Fellowship Queensland
• Aylin Taylor (AT) – Support Coordinator, Tailored Options
• Sue Grier (SG) – Managing Director, Let’s Connect Support Services
• Elizabeth Hickey (EH) – Support Coordinator, AFA Support Coordination
• Hannah Redford (HR) - Support Coordinator, Tulip Coordination
• Sabine Hazlett (SH) – Support Coordinator, Lifestyle Mentor Services
• Zena Dyson (ZD) – Specialist Support Coordinator/Team Leader, Esteem Care Services
• Sera CrichtonAita (SC) – Support Coordinator, Australian Regional & Remote Community Services

What are your top five ‘lessons from the trenches’ – insights, experiences, and learnings you can pass on to benefit others?

VS –

1. You can always learn something new.
2. Be open and accepting to change.
3. Be organised and follow through on tasks.
4. Listen to your client and always use person centred approach.
5. Get up and walk around the office several times throughout the day.

AT –

1. Always read all documents.
2. Ensure you maintain communication and transparency with participants, even if it’s bad news and LISTEN to your participants.
3. Be reliable and available to your participants when they contact you, including support providers.
4. Know what you’re doing.
5. ALWAYS stay up to date with the constant changes within the industry and the NDIS.

SG –

1. Do not lie to a participant – always be truthful.
2. Ensure you work to the budget and do home visits.
3. Breathe.
4. Build connections with planners, LACs, and other providers.
5. Attend networking meetings.

EH –

1. NETWORK – a support coordinator’s main role is to assist NDIS participants and their family to implement their NDIS plan. This can only be done through accessing supports in the local and wider community. A support coordinator should develop great contacts but also be constantly expanding their network
2. Know your role – a support coordinator is not the person that does everything. We are there to provide guidance and support for the journey and connection to others to assist the participant and their supports to know where to go. You should not be the only person a participant or family can and does turn to.
3. Burnout – either you can be aware of your own pressure points and acknowledge and manage when things get hard, or you can burn out. If, as a worker, you can acknowledge when things are getting hard and you are close to being done, and you are willing to ask for help, then you are more likely to avoid burnout. Asking for help doesn’t need to be hard and should be regular – supervision, peer support and just having a method to blow off steam is really important in a job like support coordination.
4. Don’t be afraid to fire clients – sometimes the support coordination journey isn’t easy. Many NIDS participants are not willing to change providers and, as such, will hold onto a stable presence, even if the support is not working. As a support coordinator, there are times where you will need to say ‘enough is enough – my support for you has run its course and we need to find someone else with a different approach to support you on the next part of your NDIS journey’. This can and should be done. Don’t feel bad, but also don’t hold onto a client you are no longer providing value for money to!
5. Document – don’t be afraid of an incident report. Make sure someone can pick up your notes and know what has been happening for a participant and should happen next. Don’t rely on memory – put that appointment or note in your diary, send the email follow up and do your timesheet. Forgetting to document is, and always will be, the undoing of a great support system.

HR –

1. Get everything in writing from the NDIA or providers.
2. Take breaks, they will call back if they really need you.
3. What works for one participant might not work for the next participant.
4. Take the support coordination review report seriously. It should summarise all the reports you are submitting and is the best evidence you have for what the participant is asking for, in case you have to appeal.
5. Boundaries need to be practised constantly.

SH –

1. Engage personally with the participant.
2. Don’t take no for an answer from the NDIA/NDIS.
3. Keep fighting for the participant.
4. No working relationship is forever, so know when you can no longer add to the participant’s life and help them connect with someone else.
5. Celebrate what you have achieved with them and send them a beautiful bunch of flowers, thanking them for sharing that part of their journey with you.

ZD –

1. Always refer to the NDIS website or call them for information, do not rely on others!
2. Try not to get too emotionally connected to your clients!
3. Get a social work degree before becoming a coordinator!
4. Listen carefully, and immediately fix your mishaps as you go!
5. Listen to what your clients want and get it for them quickly!

SC –

1. Read the plan.
2. Know who's who in local providers.
3. The price guide is your bible.
4. Work together.
5. Get to know your client and what their disability is, then send out referrals for capacity building.