This is the fourth post  in our confusion-clearing and myth-busting series about the NDIS. Thank you to everyone who’s provided feedback so far – keep it coming!

Here is another myth that has come through to us: People are being told that, if they choose self-management, they have to employ all their workers. Comments are also being made to people that make self-management seem the same as becoming an employer. Again, the implication here is that self-management is really hard work .

This is incorrect.

Yes, self-management offers flexibility in your funding to employ support workers yourself if that’s what you want to do. No, you don’t have to employ support workers yourself if that’s not what you want to do.

We’ve previously written about the practical benefits and current NDIS-related issues with self-managing your NDIS funds. In addition, you can also view information about self-management under the ‘Self-managing budgets in my NDIS plan’ module*.

Sometimes links to areas on the NDIA website don’t work as they should; the 404 error periodically appears when accessing information. If you’re having difficulty reaching any NDIA links we’ve posted in any of our blogs, please let us know. We’ve also contacted the NDIA about this, and we’ll let you know what’s going on when we find out.

Regarding self-management, every worker needs to be legally employed in Australia; they will either be employed by a service provider/you, or they will be self-employed.

There are three ways you can get the support staff you need, and we’ve added another. You’ll also find that the NDIA itself has published information about this, and we’ll point you in that direction as we go.

1)    Employ people yourself (also known as “Direct Employment”)

If you choose this option, you do employ support workers yourself. This means you become an employer – which means you have some legal responsibilities.

Some good places to start looking for information about this are Pearl Staffing Options and My Place.

More information about direct employment from the NDIA can be found at ‘Directly engaging my own staff’. ‘Mind the Gap: Disability Matters’ have also put out a great info sheet about direct employment that breaks the process down into manageable chunks, and explains each step of the direct employment process.

There are benefits to employing people yourself that make this option attractive to many people. One of the benefits is that you could make more savings between the rate that the NDIA pays, and the rate you pay your workers. This is because you don’t have to deal with ‘middle people’ – not because you pay workers less. These savings can mean that more direct support hours are available to you, or you possibly even have the option of hiring someone at a higher rate to do admin tasks (rostering, communicating with staff, organising team meetings, etc). This is just one of the ways that self-management (and plan-management, for that matter) offers more flexibility.

If you have Support Coordination funded in you NDIS Plan, you could also ask them to help you research information, and to link you in with people who have successfully self-managed their own NDIS funding. Alternatively, you may just want to learn more about this option to consider for your future NDIS plans.

InCharge has assisted people whose only experience of support workers was ‘being sent respite workers’ from a local agency. These people have subsequently explored, and taken up, direct employment of their own support staff. This is because we were able to support people through the process by moving through all the available options together, exploring the pros and cons of each, and then linking people in with information and resources.

What we can tell you is that if you do choose direct employment, although it can be daunting at the start, it is easy to maintain once you’ve got it up and going. But if you still don’t want to employ support workers directly, there are other ways you can self-manage your NDIS funds:

2)    Using support workers who are self-employed (also known as ‘independent contractors’)

The NDIA have summed this one up perfectly:

“A contract support worker operates similarly to most gardeners, cleaners and tradespeople, and has their own ABN and insurance and will provide you with an invoice to be paid.”

What you see here are examples of workers who supply their services to more than one client – or have started a small business because they intend to supply services to a number of clients.

When contracting support workers, there are important considerations to take into account. It’s not always straightforward whether a worker is an employee or contractor – just because they have an ABN and charge by the hour, this doesn’t necessarily make them a contractor. The Australian Tax Office (ATO) has a great video and easy questionnaire that can help you work out (a) whether your worker is an employee or contractor, and (b) the legal and financial implications of both of these. Pearl Staffing Options QLD also provides some good information around the difference between employees and contractors.

If there’s anything you’re unsure about, it’s best to contact the ATO directly.

Using independent contractors can be a great option as well: The contractor might advertise their fees, and you can decide whether you think these fees are reasonable. Some contractors might be willing to negotiate their fees, and they won’t necessarily charge higher on weekends or of a nighttime.

One of the reasons people choose this option is because, like direct employment, there is no ‘middle person/organisation’ between you and the support worker – which means that you can potentially make savings on your funding with this option as well.

3)    Through a support provider of your choice

Of course, you may still be able to find support workers through a service provider who has support workers ‘on their books’. In this case, the service provider is their employer.

The NDIA has said that:

“You can use any service provider you want to use. If a service provider or agency you want to use is registered with the NDIA, you can still self-manage your NDIS Budget and use their services.

In this instance, the registered service provider will provide you with an invoice to be paid rather than accessing your funds directly through the NDIS Portal.”

As with each option, this option has its pros and cons. The obvious advantage is that the support provider would take care of all the legal responsibilities of employment. In addition, they may also have a ready pool of support workers – and some providers may also be okay with employing people you find.

There are also new kinds of providers that also promote peer to peer connection.

The cons of this option are that, under the NDIS, the provider might claim the full NDIS payment rate from your NDIS Plan. This may mean you don’t make the savings we mentioned in the first two options that might enable you to get more support hours, etc. This may or may not be important to you. The provider may also have rules around using their workers – even ones you find – so it’s important that you have and understand a service agreement with said provider.

Finally, we wanted to touch on some of the new, online ways people are finding their support workers.

4)    Connecting, searching and finding support workers online

Our fourth option is really to help you to understand some of the new, online platforms being developed. You can use any of these platforms when you self-manage your NDIS funds. New online platforms give you a pool of potential workers to look at and engage with, and these workers can be employed in the ways we’ve talked about in this post.

Newer online organisations such as HireUp (an employer) and Better Caring (a platform that connects you with self-employed workers) are essentially the Gumtree of disability services: People with disability and support workers can sign up, provide their details and effectively cut out the ‘middle man’ when choosing their own staff.

These are by no means the only choices. A quick online search comes up with other options as well, and we always encourage people to research and decide on what is a right fit for them.

There are also state-specific as well as national Facebook groups set up and run by peers for the same purpose, such as Australian People with Disabilities and Support Workers Connections and WA Families and Disability Support Workers Network.

Online organisations give people the flexibility of choosing their own staff while the organisation provides administrative support; whereas peer-run groups give people the opportunity to meet and hire people at a grassroots level. There are also groups of people who get together to share information about how and where to find good support – this is called Peer Support to Buy Support. Two organisations we’re aware of are VALID (Victoria) and CDAH (Newcastle, NSW). Again, we encourage you to do your own research and make the best decision for you.

SUMMARY: You can employ all your support workers yourself, but you don’t have to. There are three ways the NDIA suggests you can find staff, and we’ve suggested an extra way. You might also want a mix of employees and contractors.

What all this means is that, when you self-manage your funds, there are many ways you can get support while maximising your freedom.

This is the second post of our six-part series on confusion-clearing and myth-busting pieces about the NDIS. As we said in the first post, What’s going on with the float for people who self-manage their NDIS funds, please respond in the comments or contact us if you’ve been given different advice from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA)!

This is another confusion-clearing piece – this time about the difference between Support Coordination, Plan Management and Local Area Coordinators (LACs).

Support Coordination

As an NDIS participant, you (or your nominee) become responsible for getting started, understanding your plan and its budgets, and finding and connecting with supports and services in your community to achieve your the goals in your plan.

A Support Coordinator is someone who could be funded separately in your NDIS plan to help you do just this!

They are like the person you can look at and say ‘Holy cow now I have my plan what do I do now?’

They should be like a partner to you to ‘breathe life into your plan’ and become your contact person.

At present they must also be a person or provider who is registered by the NDIA to provide this service.

The official definition of Support Coordination by the NDIA is

‘Assistance to strengthen participants abilities to coordinate and implement supports and participate more fully in the community. It can include initial assistance with linking participants with the right providers to meet their needs, assistance to source providers, coordinating a range of supports both funded and mainstream and building on informal supports, resolving points of crisis, parenting training and developing participant resilience in their own network and community.’

You can find more information about Support Coordination in our Mixed Messages: My First Plan (and How Do I Help People to make the most of their Planning Meetings blog on LinkedIn. If you think you need Support Coordination, you will need to discuss needing assistance for implementing your plan in your planning meeting .

For more information about the services we provide, click here.

Plan Manager

Plan Management is one of the ways you can manage your NDIS funding package. Remember there are three options:

• Manage your own funds (self-management)
• Get a professional to do it (plan-management)
• Let the NDIA do it (agency-management)
• A combination of the above.

Again, you will need to say in your planning meeting how you want to manage your NDIS funding package – and you can choose a mix of these options in a way that best suits you.

So a Plan Manager can help with the financial tasks of a plan. For example, organising providers and their payments, processing of claims and invoices and tracking of budgets. They may also do some tasks like a Support Coordinator does – for example, liaising with providers and perhaps trouble-shooting. They are also paid separately in your NDIS plan to do this. They must also be a registered provider.

Like self-management, if you plan-manage your funds, you can use any provider you think will help you achieve the goals in your plan. They don’t need to be registered. We have assisted people link with local services that are not NDIS registered to help achieve their goals – local small business advisors, personal concierges and cleaners as some examples.

So choosing a Plan Manager can be a great way of getting the benefits of self management, but with someone to assist with the financial side of things.

Remember that our social media assistant, Lauren, uses a Plan Manager, and writes about it here.

Local Area Coordinators (LAC)

An LAC may be the person you meet with during your first planning meeting, and then perhaps afterwards.

Because of the large number of people coming through the NDIS, LACs have been tasked with gathering data and information from people in their planning meetings, and will pass this information onto the NDIA so they can turn it into a plan. That is, they have taken on a planning role, although only the NDIA has authority to create an actual plan with dollars against it.

The NDIA has also said that a number of people will be allocated an LAC to help them implement their plan, and perhaps this will be for people they think only need a small amount of help to get started – not for those who need Support Coordination.

We wrote about the specifics of the NSW planning process here.

LACs do not work for the NDIA. In NSW, St Vincent de Paul and Uniting are the organisations that received funding to do this. There are also LACs in some parts of Victoria. Tenders for other States are happening now.

There is some controversy surrounding LACs taking on these planning specific roles. This is because this was not the original intention of the role. Indeed, LAC has a long history in Western Australia, particularly, of vital community development and capacity building work. This is because it is understood that genuine inclusion takes more work than just people with disabilities using their individualised funding packages. For a recent critique about this read here.

Summary

Support Coordination is when someone helps you to implement your plan, get started and find services and supports in your local community. Plan Management is one of three funding options you can use to manage your NDIS funds, and Local Area Coordinators (LACs) have been tasked with gathering data and information from people in their planning meetings, and will pass this information onto the NDIA so they can turn it into a plan.

Image of bright yellow sunglasses and beads

Getting NDIS ready is also about deciding how you want to manage your NDIS funds.

There are three ways to manage your NDIS funding. The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) can help you manage payments to your providers, you can manage these payments yourself (Self Management) or you can have another provider (a Plan Manager) assist you. You can even mix them!

In your planning meeting we want you to be informed about your options so you can state clearly what you would like to happen.

We’re going to be dedicating some air time in the next while to the two options called Plan Management and Self Management.

Please note that at the time of publication the NDIA launched a new website. On the old website there were two documents that clearly described Plan Management and we cannot locate them on the new website despite a lot of looking!

So….. Here is a link to information published by the A.C.T Government about these choices.

Here is another run-down about it.

These three options for managing your funds continue to exist!

Plan Managers need to be registered providers, so you can find and engage with them once you receive your plan, and through other organisations and businesses which are now listing providers.

Lauren Hislop lives in the Hunter NSW NDIS site and tells us about using a registered Plan Management provider.

Photo of Lauren Hislop

Goals are a bit daunting important

A few years ago I was initially a bit daunted about the prospect of setting goals for my first NDIS plan. I thought, “what if I’m currently satisfied with my life?”   However, as I did some self exploration, I discovered that there were, in fact, areas of my life that I wanted to improve.

I considered questions (and you can too) such as;

“what do I want my life to look like?”

“what excites me?” and

“what would infuse my life with colour?”

I had to be open to the possibilities.

My advice to people planning their goals is not to be afraid to dream big. When I first wrote my goals I was afraid to dream big. I wasn’t sure what goals to list, and maybe you aren’t sure too. However, with encouragement from others I dared to state my desires.

One of my goals was and is to find work.

Obtaining employment is one of my greatest desires. Being equipped with three university degrees I assumed I would get a position. However due to structural barriers I have found it a struggle. Unfortunately my disability overshadows my skills.

Turning goals into reality

Once I had established what my goals were, I had to figure out how to implement them. My goals were a template for my life.

When I received my first NDIS plan, it appeared great on paper. However I had no idea how to use it. I consider myself intelligent and yet I couldn’t figure out how to take advantage of it. At that time, NDIA were paying my support providers directly. Unfortunately I began to feel nothing had changed from before NDIS. I had the same agency providing me with the same care, but I was wanted something different.

Infusing my plan and life with colour

Last year I decided to engage a plan manager to help manage my funds. I also had some Supports Co-ordination hours in my plan to help with these kinds of things as well. I chose a local organisation that don’t provide any other kinds of services. I really like their independence and their values. These are two important things to look out for in my opinion.

From the moment I engaged a plan manager my life began to infuse with colour. I cannot believe how my life has changed. I have a plan manager, who puts me at the forefront of making my own decisions. They check to see how I’m going. They have done things like:

help me recruit my own workers

keep track of my budget

pay and process invoices

problem-solve with providers

This is definitely the best choice for me. I feel like I’m actually living life! It is so good to know that you are in control without having to deal with the mundane bits. It has made the principles, such as choice, a voice and control a reality in my life.

Gaining skills and finding work

Because I plan manage, I can use different kinds of services and supports to achieve the goals in my plan. I can definitely use disability services if I want, but I can also think beyond these. Previously I thought I had to use disability support workers for everything. This is one of the benefits of plan management and self management. I can look to different people, businesses and organisations in my community to help me achieve my goals.

In my plan I have some funding to help me develop confidence in my ability to undertake paid work. This is the importance of thinking about goals, because if I didn’t state this as a goal, it might not have led to this funding.

One brilliant outcome is I have used this funding to improve my professional skills.

I am a researcher and writer and have been looking for work in this area. I have been writing for  different disability rights organisations. There is a lot of great opportunity here with a growing number of organisations valuing and paying people with disability to write. This got us talking about the online world, content marketing and social media marketing opportunities. My plan manager informed me I could use my funding to engage someone in this area to mentor and train me.

I was put in touch with Andrea, a small business marketing consultant. Her training definitely equipped me better, so when Libby asked me to work for InCharge in this area, I was ecstatic.  This training will also help me with future opportunities. It enhances my appeal to other organisations who would like to contract me. I cannot express how much economic participation means to me and other people with disabilities. We yearn to be productive.

Freedom in finding my own support workers

One of the greatest benefits I have from plan management is that it has helped me to recruit my own support workers. Initially I just had personal care for an hour each day to help me shower and dress. I had no idea I could use workers for accessing the community  and other things.

There has been great freedom in interviewing and choosing for myself. My worker is invaluable. She does things like takes me shopping, attends appointments with me, helps with filing and making calls because my speech is slurred, and acts like a personal assistant in work meetings. Having this assistance has allowed me to feel that I am a valued member in the community. I set the hours she works. I’m in control.

In my opinion we need to make the most of our plan. This will not only impact on us as individuals but on society as a whole. If we have support we can use our talents and skills to enhance society. Enjoy the journey!

Marianne Williamson wrote

“It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.”

It’s time to let our light shine

They say there are 4 essential steps

1. Learn if you might be able to access the NDIS.
2. Think about your life now, your current informal and formal supports, and what is working and what might need to change.
3. Identify your strengths, interests, challenges and consider your goals or what you might want to achieve.
4. Write these things down and collect any reports, assessments or information you might find helpful for when the NDIS comes to you.

They have created a video and transcript about this, and have also confirmed elsewhere that thinking about your goals in your first plan is important.

In our work with people, however, we’ve discovered it is not always easy to do steps 2 and 3 and turn them into goals!

“Create a goal! Go on – it’s easy!”

This statement opens up an enthusiastic dialogue about how awesome goals are and why everyone going into the NDIS should go into their planning meetings equipped with goals that will change their lives for the better.

This exuberance is often fuelled by “write down your life story and everything will be hunky dory!”.  And besides, if you’ve been around disability services for long enough, you may have already told your life story to more people than you care to recall.

So. How do you turn a vague idea into a goal without opening up every corner of your life to yet another person you don’t know? Or – what is a straightforward resource that will help you to articulate the foundations of an actionable goal?

Introducing Talia

Talia, a fictional 25-year-old woman who lives with muscular dystrophy, has agreed to share her process with us. Mostly because we created her, but also because she cares about what happens to people going into the NDIS. She also said she’s happy to periodically cut our conversation off mid-stream to highlight the practical questions involved in creating a goal. So obliging!

Talia lives at home with her 18-year-old brother who is doing his final ever exams, and her Mum and Dad.

When we asked her about her goals, she paused for a moment before saying “I wish I knew. But how can I think about that when my support workers are never on time in the morning to help me get out of bed? It seems like it’s every second day that Mum has to help me instead. I’m 25 years old; I shouldn’t be this dependent on my Mum. She’s great – but yeah.”

Well these kinds of ideas are really helpful for thinking about a goal!

• “What is missing from your life?”

In Talia’s case, she is missing reliable support staff. As a result of this, she’s also missing out on having independence from her mother.

Throughout this piece, also bear in mind that these steps can be repeated for as many life areas as you deem important.

If you are looking for some help with what life areas you could think about, the NDIS Grassroots Discussion files also has an extensive list of resources, including pieces on life domains such as personal care, community inclusion, social/community support and employment support; as do WA’s Individualised Services (WAiS).

• “What would you like to change?”

Without going all Louise Hay on you, the answers to “What is missing?” need to be flipped to the positive. This is because goals literally can’t be created from what we *don’t* want – only from what we do want.

During this part of our conversation, Talia worked out that she wants reliable support staff and independence not only from her mother, but also from her family in general, who all provide her with a lot of support. And, although her family are close-knit, she just wanted the opportunity to be a daughter and sister instead.

These are the kinds of statements that can be worked with until they become less of a “wish list” and more of a “goal statement/s.” (Pardon the jargon!)

Talia had some difficulty with this next stage because, up until the NDIS, she’d had no choice but to become resigned to the status quo. How do you turn such experience and discontent into a goal statement?

• “What is stopping the missing things from happening?”

Talia said that the employees of her service provider were stopping her from receiving adequate personal care support, which was having a negative flow-on effect to her having independence from her Mum and family.

This conversation lead her nicely into the final step:

• “What would make a difference?”

Talia was stoked when it dawned on her that, with the NDIS, she could change service providers – or indeed, manage her own funds and hire her own support staff. She could even consider building her own team as a solution. She decided to ask for some mentoring assistance to learn how to properly manage and supervise support workers. And she wanted to learn from someone who was experienced in managing their own staff. She also decided to ask for a experienced person to review and create a recruitment process.

Her goal statement became:

“I want to live my life with maximum freedom, choice and enjoyment. An important part of this is having more reliable staff. I would like as little staff turn over as possible. I would like staff to turn up when I expect them to.”

So that was the beginning of Talia’s process.

Other people come at goal-setting from different angles; some are clearer on what they do want, which means they don’t have to spend as much (if any) time on Step 1. If you know what you want, you would just start from Step 3 – “What is stopping the missing things from happening?”.

And that, in a nutshell, is how to turn ideas into a goal.

To check out more resources about becoming #NDISReady as well as support for families and carers, have a browse of the NDIS Ready page (which has the nuts and bolts of what the NDIS provides for people with disability, families and carers).