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A key role of a support coordinator is to help participants to connect to NDIS and other supports.
Support coordinators help participants understand their NDIS plan, including:
Participants choose who to share their plan with. A participant and their support coordinator should talk about what information the support coordinator needs to best meet the participant’s needs.
Support coordinators must provide information using the participant’s preferred language and method of communication.
Example: Anh's Story
Anh’s first NDIS plan was recently approved. Anh meets with her support coordinator for the first time.
Anh mentions that she prefers to be contacted via phone or meet face-to-face because she has trouble reading and writing.
To help Anh understand what her NDIS plan means and how she can use her NDIS plan, Anh’s support coordinator first gets to know Anh, including her goals, needs and circumstances.
Anh’s support coordinator designs some visual cards to explain the different supports in Anh’s NDIS plan.
Anh’s support coordinator uses the cards to explain to Anh the support budgets in her plan and how she can use these supports to pursue her goals.
Anh’s support coordinator also explains what supports and services Anh might need to get quotes or assessments for.
Anh now understands what supports she has funding for, and works with her support coordinator to find and engage with different supports and services to pursue her goals.
A support coordinator should have knowledge of services available to participants. Support coordinators should help the participant:
identify and discuss the range of available NDIS, informal, community and mainstream supports (including other government and community services)
explore how they can exercise choice and control when choosing providers
connect with NDIS providers and other supports and services they require.
To help a participant find a range of service providers who can meet their individual needs, a support coordinator should talk to the participant about:
When a participant must choose registered NDIS providers – for example for NDIA-managed supports or for certain classes of supports as identified by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
When a participant can choose unregistered NDIS providers – for example when a participant is self-managing or using a plan manager
Quality and safeguards arrangements – including ensuring their provider is not the recipient of a Banning Order from the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
Any special assessments or processes that need to be followed – for example, where a participant is exploring housing options, home or vehicle modifications, or high cost assistive technology.
Support coordinators should also consider the role of informal, community and mainstream supports available to a participant.
Where other government services are required, a support coordinator should work with the participant to access these supports and services.
Example: Sarah’s story
Sarah is 18 years old and has cerebral palsy. She lives with her family in rural NSW.
She has struggled to find a local provider who could deliver daily activities to suit her support needs.
In her recent NDIS plan, she has chosen to plan-manage some of her daily activity supports and has received support coordination funding.
Her support coordinator works with Sarah, her family, her plan manager and NDIA to find and contact all local registered and non-registered NDIS providers.
The support coordinator works with Sarah and her family to organise trials with different providers.
Through this process, Sarah and her family are able to identify a local provider who is best suited her and her family’s needs.
