Step 1: Connect participants with supports and services
A key role of a support coordinator is to help a participant connect with providers and community and mainstream supports and services. This must be done in line with a participant’s goals and their NDIS plan.
As a support coordinator, how you do this will vary depending on a participant’s needs and circumstances.
This generally involves you helping a participant to:
- plan and coordinate their supports
- establish and maintain their supports.
Help participants understand their NDIS plan
You should help a participant understand their NDIS plan.
The key tasks to help participants understand their plan are to:
- meet with them in person, if possible, at an implementation meeting to start their plan
- support them or their nominee to establish access to the participant portals and my NDIS app so they can manage their account and view their plan and budgets
- inform the supports funded in their plan
- educate and refer them to would we fund it guides
- together with them, identify potential barriers to them working towards their goals
- support them to develop a crisis plan to overcome barriers.
Help participants choose providers and establish supports
You should help a participant implement the right mix of supports and services to help them work towards their goals. This should include NDIS supports, informal, community and mainstream supports and services.
The participant’s supports should be tailored to their circumstances, needs and preferences and in line with the funding available in their plan.
You should help the participant to:
- identify their support preferences based on their goals
- design a schedule of services in line with expected plan spend and help them to meet their goals and needs
- identify providers who can meet their needs
- explore and trial different support options
- evaluate the effectiveness of different support options
- navigate and work with multiple providers.
Help participants with service agreements
You should help a participant to understand they’re entering a contract with you when they agree to use their NDIS funding.
A service agreement is an agreement between a participant and provider that makes it clear what both have agreed to. It’s covered by Australian Consumer Law.
You should help participants to:
- understand and review services
- negotiate service agreements with the other providers they work with.
Learn more about service agreements.
Step 2: Help participants become more independent
Your key role is to help a participant become more independent.
Key tasks to building participants’ independence
Connect to supports and services themselves
You can help a participant to become more independent when:
- establishing their supports, including negotiating with providers
- choosing and controlling how to make the best use of their supports.
You can do this by making sure you’re including participants in key tasks. This helps participants learn how to do the task, so they can do it more independently in the future.
Making decisions for themselves
You play an important part in building a participant’s confidence and skills to use and coordinate their own supports.
You can help participants to develop skills and build independence to manage their plan in line with their goals by helping them to plan and make decisions for themselves.
Monitor plan budgets and effectiveness of their supports
When implementing supports in a participant’s plan, you should help them learn how to independently:
- keep track and stay within budgets
- evaluate how effectively the supports have met their needs
- track progress towards meeting their goals
- change the mix of supports or how they are delivered.
Help with systems and process
You also coach participants to become more confident and independent when navigating our systems and processes.
This includes helping them to use the participant portal and app by themselves.
Help with crisis planning
You should work with participants, their families and carers to:
- list key contacts and supports
- establish supports to prevent crisis situations
- make sure a crisis plan is in place
- help them put the crisis plan into action, if needed
- link them to other government services, such as justice, education, child and family protection, where appropriate.
You should also help participants to access crisis services, if needed.