Step 1: Connect participants with supports and services
A key role of a support coordinator is to help a participant connect with NDIS providers, community, mainstream and other government services. This must be done in line with a participant’s goals and their NDIS plan.
How support coordinators do this will vary depending on a participant’s needs and circumstances.
This generally involves helping a participant:
- plan and coordinate their supports
- establish and maintain their supports.
Help participants understand their NDIS plan
Support coordinators should help a participant understand their NDIS plan.
The key tasks to help participants understand their plan are:
- face-to-face (where possible) implementation meeting with the participant to start their plan
- support the participant or their nominee to establish access to the NDIS portal and app so they can manage their account and view their plan and budgets
- communicate the supports that have been funded in the participant’s plan
- educate and refer the participant to Would we fund it guides
- together with the participant, identify potential barriers to them achieving their goals
- support them to develop a crisis plan to overcome barriers.
Help participants choose providers and establish supports
Support coordinators should help a participant implement the right mix of supports and services to help them meet their goals. This should include NDIS supports, informal, community and mainstream supports.
A participant’s supports should be tailored to their circumstances, needs and preferences, in line with the funding available in their plan.
As a support coordinator, you should help the participant:
- 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 the participant's requirements
- explore and trial different support options
- evaluate the effectiveness of different support options
- navigate and work with multiple providers.
Help participants with service agreements
Support coordinators should help a participant understand that when they agree to use their NDIS budget to pay for supports, they are entering into a contract with a provider.
A service agreement is an agreement between a participant and a provider that makes it clear what both have agreed to. It is 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
A key role of a support coordinator is to help a participant become more independent.
Key tasks to building participants’ independence
Connect to supports and services themselves
A support coordinator 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 are including participants in key tasks. This helps participants learn how to do the task so they can do it more independently in the future.
Make decisions for themselves
Support coordinators 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 participants to plan and make decisions for themselves.
Monitor plan budgets and effectiveness of their supports
When implementing supports in a participant’s plan, a support coordinator should help the participant 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
Support coordinators also coach participants to become more confident and independent when navigating NDIS systems and processes.
This includes helping them to use the participant portal and app by themselves.
Help with crisis planning
A support coordinator should work with participants, their families and carers to:
- list key contacts and/or supports
- establish supports to prevent crisis situations
- make sure a crisis plan is in place
- help the participant put the crisis plan into action if needed
- link the participant to other government services such as justice, education, child and family protection, where appropriate.
Support coordinators should also help participants to access crisis services if needed.