Support Coordination

 

A SchemeWise support coordinator is your partner in helping you achieve... your goals!

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We can help plan-managed or self-managed particpants.

When you need expert advice... you need us

Support Coordination may play a crucial role in ensuring that NDIS participants are able to use their plan to live a good life and reach their goals.  This is especially the case for participants who are vulnerable and socially isolated or people who have lots of change occurring around them or in their lives. 

SchemeWise are your NDIS Support Coordination and Specialist Support Coordination experts in ACT and NSW (Southern and Murrumbidgee areas).  Unlike most other similar services SchemeWise specialises in offering this service to people who are plan-managed or self-managed with their NDIS funding. We specialise in helping you! 

Our support coordinators are health or allied-health professionals too.  This ensures you get REAL expertise and quality.  Our coordinators are all overseen and registered with various professional and government regulators.  And they all have many years experience in complex care environments and solving real world problems like transitions from home to independent living, from hospital to home, coping with psychosocial disability and dealing with changes in health and wellbeing, as well as getting the most out of community and mainstream service and support options... just to name a few. 

 

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Support coordination and the NDIS explained

The following introductory video (produced by the NDIS) can help you understand what support coordination is generally about.

 

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How we can help you...

SchemeWise can only help if your funding is plan- or self-managed. 

You can ask that your support coordination funds be provided either of these ways at a plan review. 

If you have been issued a plan which is NDIA-managed, you can use the first few months to seek a review of decision, and have your funding changed to be plan- or self-managed. This is part of your right to choice and control, for your plan use, and services choice.

Don't worry we can help you seek a review and change your funding too - free-of-charge*

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Which coordination options are the best for you?

The NDIS offers three levels of support coordination if you have this service option in your plan.  It is generally one of the categories included under the Capacity Building part of your plan and there will be a bold heading 'Support Coordination' to identify what the NDIS has agreed to fund, and the hours provided as a fixed cost maximum it has funded.  The three types of coordination are listed below.

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Support Connection (Level 1)

This is a basic level service to help you put supports and services in place.  SchemeWise can assist with Support Connection in a few ways:

- when you know what services and support you want to use but need some assistance to understand an agreement or put one in place; or

- where your existing service / support is not meeting your needs and you need minor assistance to help approach a new one; or

- you need help to manage the flow of information about you with a service / support (for example, obtaining a service agreement, understanding and completing it, and then providing any additional details a provider needs about you to be able to commence the service / support).

Support Connection is a simple service usually focused on one service or support.  If more than one is required at a time then you need a Level 2 support coordination option.  SchemeWise may sometimes use this level and ask that you make a small one time only contribution to our research pool which helps us keep track of services and supports people can use.

NOTE: This level of service is rarely given through an NDIS plan.  Instead you will simply not see a support coordination section.  However, if you do NOT receive coordination in your plan, the NDIS will instead give around 10 hours at this level for an LAC Partner to help you get started.  You should ensure you contact your LAC Partner (a contractor) and make good use of the funding by asking them to make some recommendations for services you'd like to use and get help from them (if you require it) to put in place service agreements. If an LAC Partner refuses to help you - you should contact the NDIS on 1800 800 110 and raise a complaint.  In SchemeWise service areas the following LAC Partners are contracted by the NDIS:

ACT - FerosCare  P: 1300 986 970

SthNSW - Uniting  P: (02) 9275 9451 

NSW Murrumbidgee - InteReach  P: 1300 488 226

 

Support Coordination (Level 2)

Remember: SchemeWise can only help if you have plan-managed or self-managed funding.

This is the most common type of coordination included in NDIS plans.  Support Coordination (confusing called Coordination of Supports under an NDIS plan) involves helping you locate the best services and supports for you. 

A SchemeWise Support Coordinator will support you to understand and implement the funded supports in your plan and connect to disability, community, and mainstream health or other government services. (Note: we cannot interact with mainstream at this level, as this is limited by the NDIS to the specialist level service and you may need to consider if you need a mix of service types).

At this level, your coordinator will help with transitions like leaving hosptial and returning home. This generally looks like receiving advice on your home needs from a mainstream provider and helping ensure they are implemented / available once you leave that service. This may involve using your NDIS plan further or in a different way then previously, also (e.g. a different therapy option).

At this level, your SchemeWise Support Coordinator will assist you to negotiate with disability (registered or private) providers about what they will offer you and how much it will cost.  SchemeWise can help you find, negotiate and put in place the services you require - from supports you already use and trust as well as assist you to find new services to help achieve your NDIS goals. 

- Your coordinator will also help build your ability to exercise choice and control (manage services and ensure they work the way you want), to coordinate supports and access local community options of interest to you.

- They will help you source, find, engage, adjust and also monitor services you use for quality and ensure they deliver on their promises and provide quality services to you.

- Your coordinator can also assist you in planning ahead to prepare for your plan review, and support you at your next review meeting too.

This level of service generally has a monitoring role to assist you and ensure things keep going well - and we generally ask that you meet or are in contact with us regularly to assist this obligation - the NDIS generally requests a 'progress report' and, at the end of your plan, an 'outcomes report'.

SchemeWise also collects information to help you with your NDIS plan review like helping you talk with your various services and supports and seek necessary reports for the NDIS. Your coordinator is required to prepare and issue a report too. They will also support you through your review meeting with either an NDIS or LAC Planner.

If an issue with a service or support does become apparent, your SchemeWise coordiantor will be there to also help you sort things out and get things back on track. Or we can also help you find and engage a better quality provider instead so that your needs a met!  A SchemeWise coordinator is YOUR trusted support!

 

Specialist Support Coordination (Level 3)

Remember: SchemeWise can only help if you have plan-managed or self-managed funding.

This is a specialist level service for people living with disability whom have high level or complex needs.  SchemeWise can provide this level of service with the NDIS.  All SchemeWise Specialist Coordinators are allied-health or health professionals with many years of disability and/or lived experience. They understnad how various mainstream and community sector systems work.

When this level is funded under and NDIS plan, a SchemeWise Specialist Coordinator will interact with your mainstream (public ) services like health, mental health, housing, justice, education etc, if you have particular needs in these areas or ongoing involvements are necessary within these systems.

When you use a SchemeWise Specialist Coordinator, they will generally be highly involved in developing a service(s) 'fit for purpose' for your needs and situation, or addressing a specific and complex issue in your circumstances. 

People with complex needs may need this level of coordination to build services that suit them! A good way to remember if this need is evident is to think whether you can access services you need readily, or not?  If not, and its because of your disability condition, then a Level 3 coordinator role may be needed and you should be asking for this at a plan review.  The NDIS can also provide a mixture of Level 3 and Level 2 under a plan - meaning you can obtain help to solve a particular problem and then keep using SchemeWise at general level 2, to assist and continue helping you too.

SchemeWise Specialist Support Coordinators generally interact with any service and support providers to design a support specifically for you and ensure that a provider's people are trained to meet your needs.  After services and supports are in place SchemeWise will keep monitoring things and collecting information for you to support plan review, as well as complete the required progress and outcomes reports to the NDIS.

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Difference between support coordination (L2) and specialist coordination (L3)

A Support Coordinator and a Specialist Support Coordinator are very similar however there are some key differences.

A Specialist Support Coordinator will be funded where there are additional risk, high level or complex needs in your situation and will be a qualified and experienced practitioner such as an allied health or health professional (degree trained or higher).  These individuals are generally registered under government or professional associations to practice.

SchemeWise specialist support coordinators will support you to manage challenges in your support environment, which may include health, housing, education, or justice services. Specialist support coordination aims to reduce barriers to implementing or using your NDIS plan. Specialist coordinators MUST have allied-health or health qualifcaitons and relevant experience. They are also a registered/regulated professional with a peak or government body.

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Difference between psychosocial recovery coaching and support coordination

These services also appear simialr - but they are not.  Coaching generqlly invovles encourag=ing and supporting a person to utilsie their own capacity (and/or developing same) and that the person otherwise 'does'.  This is NOT an appropriate service for most people just starting out in the NDIS where they have low capacity and/or do NOT understand NDIS processes.

Recovery coaching is also only appropriate where a person holds some personal capacity, and only has a psychosocial disability (called a primary disability).  If they have a mental health problem or mood disorder secondary to any other primary disability (e.g. a brain injury) it is NOT an appropriate service.

Coordination, encompasses a coaching element, but seeks to also augment a person's capacity.... includng stepping in when their capacity is low or they lack capacity and need broader assistance.  Always a coordinator will provide choice and control by helping people examine the service provider options in their local area. But where a coaching service then requires the particpant to interact with a provider (with support), a coordiantor may do so instead, to help advance a service and ensure effective plan use (called implementation).

When you go for a plan review you should therefore be very clear on which service is right for you, and even better write this down and put the reasons on your NDIS portal.  This can help if you need to appeal a decision later, because you think the NDIS has got it wrong (yes it happens.... too often) as an NDIS/LAC planner is required to have regard to your preferences and reasons too.

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Who should get Support Coordination?

About 4 in every 10 participants (40% of people) have Support Coordination included in their NDIS Plan. This figure does vary depending on age (young children tend to get less) and which state or territory you live in. For example, 35% of Participants in NSW/ACT receive support coordination, 31% in Queensland, and 46% in Victoria.

Participants most likely to receive support coordination in their NDIS plan include people:

  • of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage;
  • with extremely low functioning, complex needs and receiving multiple supports;
  • young people in nursing care;
  • conditions of a degenerative nature,
  • supports requiring regular active management and ongoing adjustment due to the participant’s changing needs;
  • with ongoing ill-health support needs;
  • with or requiring regular crisis management (could be one or more reasons, e.g. justice system intervention);
  • with poorly resourced families or limited or no informal support networks;
  • with current or past child protection or criminal justice involvement (law breaking);
  • with a history of changing and challenging support provision (incl. history of loss of services);
  • have low capacity ansd are new to the NDIS and/or have a Guardian/plan nominee; or
  • with severe and persistent psychosocial disability (if they have very low personal capacity).

Participants classified as medium or high risk through NDIS planning, generally receive Coordination of Supports and/or Specialist Support Coordination. It is possible for a provider to deliver both Coordination of Supports and/or Specialist Support Coordination too - SchemeWise can do this as its people are appropriately qualified according to the NDIS suitability rules. You could also use different providers for each level. The choice is yours - and SchemeWise is happy to work with other providers too.

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There's a few things your support coordinator will need, to help them, help you...

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NDIS Support Coordination, as necessary, assists a person to develop, build and connect with services and enhances their personal capacity.  It is involved in designing support approaches. It includes supporting people toward coaching, refining, reflecting, planning, prevention, mitigation and action. Reporting to the NDIA is part of a coordinator's role too. Coordinators may also be required to help you connect or interaction with one or more mainstream services too.  For these reasons they need to have information to assist their understanding, of you. It is therefore very important you assist your coordinator and act with appropriate transparency and honesty as they may not otherwise have a good understanding of you, or your lived situation and other risks, and this can affect their capacity to help you as best as possible. These are part of your responsibilities when you take up a SchemeWise service.

The things you can do may include providing:

1. Previous NDIS reports (if you are new to SchemeWise and a coordinator has not worked with you before).

2. Previous therapist or medical/health reports, so they can help you understand what is recommended and what other services you may need, or how future services may need to be utilised (e.g. how frequently), or designed, in the best way to help you.

3. Information about your providers (registered and/or private), and other mainstream services you use (and relevant contact points and details).

4. A clear understanding of your health background and related disability condition(s). This should be via report(s) to confirm your diagnoses, etc. (You do not have to give us a report but we must at least sight these, otherwise we may not have an accurate understanding of you).

5. A clear understanding of any risks for you, to ensure you are generally safe. Risk screening/management will be undertaken with you, if required.

6. Be provided the contact details of family, friends, other informal carers and relevant emergency contacts to help keep you safe.

7. Be provided with documentation confirming any Guardianship, Power-of-Attorney, Plan nominee/Child representative, or advocate person's status.

8. To ensure our people know who you are, we also ask for a head and shoulders photo. This is also part of our person-centred service focus.

9. [Where required] specific consent provided so we may talk/interact with mainstream health, mental health, justice, housing, education services, or the NDIS, or others. If not provided, your coordinator is unable to engage with such parties.

10. Your coordinator will also take notes when they meet and work with you. These may be used toward making service notes for support design/feedback, assistance, knowledge of you, and/or reporting. For example, they may make notes on matters your doctor is investigating if you have not received a diagnosis yet, or about relevant things about your circumstances (like service problems), or to help understand you better, or to add new information about all your different supports to the NDIS as well as any problems you raise, or discussions they have with you, or decisions you make for services use.

SchemeWise must also be provided a copy of your NDIS plan, so your coordinator can understand your goals (and report on these) and funded supports to help you implement and use your plan. For example, they will help you to consider service budgets within your funding.

If you are not willing to share your plan with your SchemeWise coordinator, they cannot help you AND SchemeWise cannot provide you with a support coordination service.

 

Your information is kept private and confidential and is not published, shared or sold.

 

support coord help

 

Visit our explainer page to find out more about what and how a support coordinator helps you.

 

Find out more about support coordination on the NDIS website.

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* SchemeWise will generally ask that you sign a statement of intent to work with us in return for providing free-of-charging funding support. Where you do not decide to go ahead and your funding options was changed, a small fee may be privately payable by you (bad faith fee) - this is not charged if the NDIS declines to make funding changes. If your funding is changed, and you choose to use SchemeWise, there remains no fee payable for free-of-charge funding assistance ever.

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