Support Coordination is all about person centred planning and how to get the most out of each of your participant’s plans. We all know what person-centred planning means, but do you have the tools to create a plan for your participant that is truly person centred?
What is Person-Centred Planning?
Essentially it means that the participant is central to all conversations about them and their NDIS plan: that they are provided with the information and support they need to ensure their decisions are informed, they have the space to express their dreams and vision for their future and that their support is delivered in the manner that they desire.
It all sounds pretty simple, but:
- How do you know how much support the participant needs to understand their NDIS plan and how to implement it?
- How do you ensure that the participant is adequately supported to make an “informed decision”?
- What happens if you disagree with the participant on how they want to pursue their NDIS plan goals?
- Or, what happens if the participant’s family/informal supports disagree with how they want to implement their plan?
This is where all of your Support Coordination skills and professional practice come to the fore.
Building Trust and Understanding Capacity
Firstly, you need to have the trust of the participant and their support network and the best place to start is by being able to effectively facilitate the conversation where the participant articulates what each of their NDIS plan goals mean to them, and what it will look like when they achieve them.
During this conversation the more experienced Support Coordinators will start to get a feel for how much support the participant requires to break down their plan into the basic components and figure out what supports will assist them with their plan goals.
It is critical to understand at this early stage how capable the participant is to drive their supports, and just how supportive their family/informal carers are in enabling them to pursue their goals in the manner that they choose. You will get a feel for how much knowledge they have of the NDIA and Mainstream sector, their community and their personal support networks, and how much help they require to navigate these systems.
You will need to assess how supportive the participant’s family/informal carers are, and how open are they to accepting the views and vision of the participant; especially when it comes to those with an appetite for high risk, or when people or things in the participant’s environment contribute significant risks.
A lot of this comes with practice and less experienced Support Coordinators may rely more heavily on tools to measure their observations of the participant’s capacity to manage their supports and what risks exist.
Documentation and Compliance
Regardless of your level of experience all Support Coordinators are required to keep a record of what it will look like when your participant achieves each of their NDIS plan goals, how you will assist your participant to achieve each of their NDIS plan goals, what risks they may face as well as to keep a track of all of the tasks you, the participant and their support network need to complete in order to stay on top of the progress of this plan.
You will also need to evidence that you have assessed your participant’s meaningful input into the formulation of the plan you have created with them to pursue their NDIS plan goals, that you have provided them with the opportunity to participate meaningfully, or built their capacity where required, and that you have offered them choice and control of the supports you have recommended to them.
That sounds like a lot of work, and a lot of documentation. Many Support Coordinators struggle to keep up with the multitude of templates and documents they need to do all of this work and remain compliant with the Quality and Safeguard Commission’s requirements.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could have all of these tools, all in one place and that they automatically populate with participant’s data that has already been captured?
Tools Built Into Support Coordination Software
We can tell you that not only does Support Coordination Software have all of these tools, but they are co-designed by the recipient of the Most Outstanding Person-Centred Planning Practitioner award at this year’s national Enablement Awards. We have collaborated with Support Coordination Academy to develop the following tools and features in Support Coordination Software to enable you to achieve best practice in your person-centred Support Coordination work with minimal fuss.
The plan unpacking guide is a useful tool to enable the participant to express how they understand precisely what their plans mean to them and what each plan goal will look like when it has been achieved.
The participant confidence scale tool assesses how much (or little) input is required of the Support Coordinator to build the capacity of the participant to enable them to drive their own supports.
The Support Coordination Action Plan (SCA plan) is essentially your project management plan for your work with your participant, and it records:
- What it will look like when each goal is achieved
- who is responsible for each task and when it is due
- what outcomes where achieved for each goal
The SCA plan comes with a Risk Assessment built into it that has a Risk Management Plan template to record your strategies and review outcomes if the risks exceed the threshold.
These two tools are a requirement of all registered providers (in other words, everyone will need to have one in place eventually) and the provider rating tool is more than helpful in demonstrating choice and control to your auditors whilst providing you with confidence in knowing you will only recommend the best and most suitable services to your participants.
Whilst more experienced Support Coordinators may not need to use the plan unpacking guide or participant confidence tool, these are awesome resources to use when you’re scaling your business, and training new Support Coordinators on how to do their job in a person-centred way.
Preparing for Mandatory Registration
Given that mandatory registration is going to eventually happen (we may not know when), every Support Coordinator in the country will need to be able to demonstrate to your auditors that you have these documents/tools in place for all of your participants.
Support Coordination Software by Sonic is the only software available that has all of these tools. In fact, many other “Support Coordination” software products only offer a risk assessment matrix within their software – none of them have a risk management plan that is specific to NDIA participants let alone Support Coordination participants.
How Software Can Help
Support Coordination Software ensures you can manage all of your person-centred planning resources in one place, saving you time and helping you stay compliant — while keeping the focus where it belongs: on your participants and their goals.
👉 Want to find out more about how Support Coordination Software helps you deliver person-centred planning with ease?
Click here to book a demo or sign up for a no obligation 14-day free trial.