TTP and how this affects you and your funding

• October 30, 2019
• admin

TTP stands for Temporary Transformation Payment.

As of July 1 2019, NDIS Registered providers who provide Attendant Care and Community Access Support, have the option of increasing their hourly rate. So an hour that normally would cost $52.85, the increased rate takes it to $56.81. That’s almost a $4 an hour increase, that’s huge! Now, plans that were already in place had their funding automatically adjusted to allow for this increase.

However, any new plan, and when I say new plan, I mean ANY plan that is being built, whether it’s a first plan or a fourth plan, HAVE NOT had their budgets increased.

Say what???

Why not? Well the NDIA reckon that people should be able to negotiate a lower price with their service providers.. And that people can just change providers if they don’t like the increased charge..

I call this bullshit. Perhaps if the scheme was 15 years old and a smooth ride for people, there was a competitive marketplace, and in rural and remote areas, people had more choice than just one provider. Or a scheme that people do not have to fight tooth and nail for every bit of support they receive, then yes, perhaps people would have the strength to do this, or the confidence to address their provider and negotiate a better rate.

So ultimately, what does this mean? Well until the NDIA realise how unfair, unjust and just plain ludicrous this is, it means that you can either:

• Pay more for your supports and that means you will have less supports for the duration of your plan,
• Try and change providers – but I warn you that the majority of providers have increased their cost, and I am talking even the big massive providers with big bucks in the bank!
• Ask for a plan review – because this is such an easy and speedy process…

You can read more about it on the NDIS website: https://www.ndis.gov.au/providers/price-guides-and-information/annual-price-review

What are your thoughts? Or has this already affected you or someone you know? Give us a comment on our Facebook post to say how you feel about this.

Teaching Skills for People with Disabilities – Review and Monitoring

• October 16, 2019
• admin

NDIS funding focuses a lot on capacity building, and we often see that there has been limited capacity building, due to the wrong supports in place. Skill instruction for people with disabilities is a specialist skill. It cannot be assumed that support workers have the necessary skills and experience to achieve learning outcomes for people who as adults have not yet acquired important living skills.

In the last two weeks we have looked at:

• Stage 1 , designing a teaching program, &
• Stage 2, putting the program into action.

Today we are talking about Stage Three – Review and Monitoring

This super important step helps you to reflect on what worked, what didn’t and what can be done better or differently in the future.

It is important to know for people with disability, skill acquisition and retention can take long periods of time but there will be incremental gains and these should be celebrated by the team. Reviews need to occur with the person and support workers.

This stage includes reliability testing or questioning of staff in relation to the program to ensure staff are following program as much as possible, but also for program designer to note any feedback, suggestions for practice improvement and monitor the individual’s behavioural responses in the learning environment.

It is really exciting to see adults gaining completing tasks that they value and lead to greater independence and social outcomes.

I recommend you start small and have reasonable expectations and trust your learner and those that know them.
Question to consider, are your support workers helping you to build skills in the areas of your choice?

Teaching Skills for People with Disabilities – Program Implementation

• October 9, 2019
• admin

NDIS funding focuses a lot on capacity building, and we often see that there has been limited capacity building, due to the wrong supports in place. Skill instruction for people with disabilities is a specialist skill. It cannot be assumed that support workers have the necessary skills and experience to achieve learning outcomes for people who as adults have not yet acquired important living skills.

Last week we looked at Designing the Program to suit a person’s individual needs.

Today we are talking about:

Stage Two – Program Implementation, putting the program into action!

With the designed skill program , run through the task with the person.

Take notes on what level of prompt was required and the response.

The benefit of having a written program is that it will be more consistently applied by various workers with greater reliability and consistency. This is important, as support workers will do things differently and have different expectations of the learner.

The program will also feature in the person’s routine. There will be a minimum number of times the task will be performed daily/weekly.

Notes should be taken consistently throughout the program to support review time, so that changes can be made, but importantly, so successes can be identified.

Next week we will look at the Review and Monitoring Stage.

Teaching Skills for People with Disabilities – Program Design

• October 2, 2019
• admin

NDIS funding focuses a lot on capacity building, and we often see that there has been limited capacity building, due to the wrong supports in place. Skill instruction for people with disabilities is a specialist skill. It cannot be assumed that support workers have the necessary skills and experience to achieve learning outcomes for people who as adults have not yet acquired important living skills.

It is also important to ensure your focused support is a skill that the person wants and is motivated to learn. It should have an outcome that provides plenty of opportunity to practice and use. It should also provide the scaffolding for future learning, and have a practical, social and community aspect for the person.

There are three important areas to learning:

1. Program design,
2. Program implementation, &
3. Review and monitoring.

Today we will focus on Program Design

With the person, set goals and outcomes. Sometimes the skill or goal identified may be broken down into smaller ‘chunks’. You will know once you have had a good chat and looked at planning goals previously set.

It is important to know how the person best learns. We know completing tasks in natural environments work best but don’t rule out role plays, social stories and other resources to aid learning. Prompt hierarchies and reinforcement schedules are also to be considered in program design as you get to know your student or learner.

Baseline is established by observing the person attempting the task steps and you will need to adjust program steps to suit. One of the best ways to design the skill program is to complete the task yourself, being very aware of all steps and equipment/items required to complete it. For example, making a cup of tea. Write down every step and items required to make the cup of tea and then adapt to suit the learner.

Next week we will look at Program Implementation.

We also provide Positive Behaviour Support

• September 25, 2019
• admin

Communication is a human right, and when there are barriers to being able to communicate your wants, your needs, your choices and goals, this can lead to many overwhelming feelings of anxiety, frustration, anger and stress.

We work to understand your needs and to help you communicate these.

We know that people living with disability are often silenced, and we want to ensure you are not further silenced by hearing you, listening to you, and understanding what is going on in your world.

We welcome families insight, for families often hold crucial information that helps us develop the best strategies and interventions.

We also educate your support networks to build them to understand how to help you communicate, and support you to have true choice and control over your life. We know how important it is for your support network to be able to self regulate themselves, in order to be able to provide the best support to you.

We see behaviour as a strength, a way that a person expresses their feelings, to be able to communicate what they need to. We will work with this strength.
We will do our best to hear you, to listen to you.

Get in touch if you would like to learn more.
You can make a referral here.
Check out more about our approach to behaviour support here.

Telephone Counselling Service

• September 11, 2019
• admin

Sometimes we need to talk to someone about what we are dealing with, then and there. Sometimes we just can’t wait until our next face to face session. That’s where we can help!

You can call us on 1800 REACH US,  and speak to one of our counsellors, even just for 15 minutes. Sometimes, that’s all you need to get through the day.

You can call us, no matter where you are, as long as you have phone reception.

Short on phone credit? Let us know by sending a text, and we will call you back

If you think our Counselling service might just be what you need, you can sign up by:

• Phoning 1800 REACH US (1800 732 248)
• Emailing: reachus@createasenseofplace.com.au
• Completing our Referral Form

What you will need:

Have an NDIS Plan with either a budget for Improved Daily Living, or if you are self managing, you can use any budget to purchase our support!

Your NDIS service provider – are they organised or is their chaos affecting your supports?

• September 4, 2019
• admin

At Create A Sense of Place, we have set up systems to make sure we are working efficiently. This includes simple stuff like online forms which completely reduce our paper trail, but increase our audit trail for safeguard purposes.

We have checklists to follow, to ensure we get done what is needed, and regular staff meetings with action plans to ensure we stay on track.

Our work is transparent, and our records can be shared openly with the people we support should they wish to read their notes and files. This also flows into our claiming, and ensures we make the right claims for the support we have provided.

Being organised is so important!

Here’s some things to look out for that might mean your provider is disorganised:

• Missed supports
• Constantly changing shifts,
• Cancelling meetings/shifts,
• Over claiming for supports,
• Not claiming for months, and then doing a whopping huge claim,
• Constant change in workers.

Let’s look at support coordination.

A huge part of our role is helping to organise your NDIS plan. If your support coordinator is unorganised, or the company they work for is, you need to ask how on earth they will be able to organise your NDIS plan? Chances are they can’t.

Here’s some things to look out for:

• Your plan may not be implemented in full, or at all,
• Your funding may run out,
• Referrals have been made in house, and not organised based on suitability,
• Doubling up on work, leading to over charging,
• Bad, or non existent record keeping.

At Create A Sense of Place, we pride ourselves on being organised, and we believe this is reflected in our work, our thorough reporting processes and systems.

If this is important to you, and you feel you are not getting this with your current provider, get in touch.

You can read more about how we stay organised using online forms in an article here.

The Planning cycle – Tier 3 Specialist Support Coordination

• August 19, 2019
• admin

Support Coordination operates on three tiers:

1. Support Connection (see relevant article here)
2. Coordination of Supports (see relevant article here)
3. Specialist Support Coordination

Today we are talking about Tier 3 in the NDIS planning cycle, Specialist Support Coordination.

Specialist Support Coordination operates within a specialist framework where high level risks are present in the participant’s situation. This can be a specific crisis and does not always need to be ongoing.

The specialist role is time limited and focuses on reducing risks and developing solutions to complex situations. The role of the specialist exists in complex service environments where a large multi-disciplinary team of supports are involved and requires skills in developing intervention plans, skills programs, develop and deliver staff training, building participant capacity and resilience and high level communication skills.

Complex situations for participants often involve multiple chronic conditions, risk of entering the criminal justice system, high risk of placement or service breakdown, homelessness and significant periods of transition such as leaving school, family /carer breakdown or ageing.

The coordinator providing this level of support should hold relevant university qualifications, and have extensive experience.

For more information about the levels of support and what might suit your situation, get in touch with us.

Questions to ask when finding an NDIS Support Coordinator

• August 16, 2019
• admin

Here is a list of great questions to ask a support coordinator, when you are trying to find the right person.

• What is your background?
• How long have you been a Coordinator of supports?
• How do you make your referrals?
• Are you expected to refer in house with your company?
• What if you refer me to a place and I am not happy?
• How do you charge for your time?

You may also want to think about things such as:

• Do you need them to have a specialty area?  Such as housing, employment,  complex support management
• Do they have capacity? You want to make sure they have time to work with you.
• How soon do you need them to start?

Have you got any questions that you ask? Comment on the Facebook post, we would love to read them!