AAYS is proud to share an inspiring success story for an 8 year old participant from Charlestown, NSW. We provide both NDIS Plan Management & NDIS Support Coordination to help them soar!
Reason for Contacting AAYS
AAYS initially met the family at the Newcastle Disability Expo and had a friendly conversation. They soon contacted us by phone. They expressed the desire to achieve greater control of what’s happening with their funding.
Unfortunately, the family had a negative experience with a seperate provider. Their previous plan was configured to “auto approve invoices”, so the provider was withdrawing funds without contacting the family. The family described that they had felt ‘financially abused’. This lasted over 1.5 years.
When a person is new to the NDIS, it can be overwhelming and seemingly small changes to a NDIS plan can have a huge impact. The family wished to change providers to AAYS and elect for manual approval of invoices.
Initial Consultation
The wonderful family chose to visit our office at Gateshead.
During the initial consultation, we covered the different options available for them, which was largely exploring the differences between self and plan managed, which was new information for the family.
We phoned the NDIS to perform what is referred to as a light touch review, which is basically re-configuring a couple of things to help the participant live more independently. In this case, the family agreed that Plan Management was the best solution for them.
We were proud to now have the family with AAYS.
Adding Support Coordination
After 6 months of just providing NDIS Plan Management, the family was impressed with how we operate. They liked our communication, our care staff and our efforts to actually help them improve their knowledge of the NDIS. We empower people to help them soar!
The family said they would like to provide us with the opportunity to also represent them for NDIS Support Coordination.
We mentioned that they had two options
- Provide their feedback to the existing NDIS Support Coordinator; or
- Leave their existing NDIS Support Coordinator and move to a new one.
Being independent, the conflict of interest is managed and we actually offered them three other support coordinators as well as us. We are proud that, eventually, they chose AAYS.
We then coordinated the supports and met with the family on an as-needed basis.
Setting Meaningful Goals
The participants’ goal from their NDIS plan carried over, which was to improve the relationship between them and their siblings and parents.
The goal would be achieved by coordinating behaviour therapists, counsellors and occupational therapists. These three practitioners would write reports and recommendations for our client to work towards their goals, and live safely at home.
The Behaviour Therapist was engaged to help with the relationship component, and the OT was engaged to help with the sensory processing side of things.
As a note, it is possible to spend NDIS funding in a number of ways. For example, this funding could have been allocated to respite care, however, that would not be the best use of funding.
The goals and ways to achieve them were all agreed upon by the family and AAYS. Our staff typically have experience in disability support and a Certificate IV in Individual Supports and can help people formulate NDIS goals.
Feedback from the Family
The family reported that in the 4 hours that we initially did the setup, they learned more in that session than the entirety of their time elsewhere.
After some time providing support coordination for their child, the family reported that they were much happier and said “We’ve got our child back” which was lovely to hear.
Considerations for Complex Behaviours
For people with complex behaviours, this can create challenging situations.
By engaging medical professionals, the family was able to identify the triggers that could cause an outburst, as well as strategies to help that person return to baseline. In this case, a sensory room was tried but was, unfortunately, unsuccessful.
In this complex case, we asked: “What is the best way forward?”.
For this person living with a lifelong disability, we believe the best strategy was to invest heavily in training from Psychologists and counsellors for the carers, the participant and the family.
Achieving Great Outcomes
For the plan management side of things, the family was able to use providers that were better suited to them.
In fact, the participant was able to enjoy a full school summer holiday period without requiring respite care. This is so great!
The family currently does not have ongoing therapists and loves to go out into the community and enjoy their time together.
Final Thoughts
AAYS is proud of our approach. We worked with the family and medical professionals, combining all of our experience to deliver the best results.
As the participant is young, we believe that we allocated the funding to important prerequisites (such as the Behaviour Therapist and OT) that would help on a foundational level. We believe this was the best use of funding for that point in time.
This work made AAYS feel like we’ve achieved something – that we really followed our purpose being here, which is to help everyone involved. We feel good.
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