How will I benefit from Support Coordination under the NDIS?

A Support Coordinator assists people how to access the NDIS services that best suit them so eventually they can coordinate them on their own.

“We work with people to get them to a stage where ultimately they have the knowledge to access services by themselves, so in time they no longer need us,” says Windermere Support Coordinator Kate Louden.

A large part of a Support Coordinator’s role involves assisting NDIS consumers to find and connect with the services that will best support them to achieve the goals listed in their NDIS plan.

Consequently Support Coordinators can remove much of the stress of having to coordinate NDIS services or trying to get started implementing a NDIS plan.

As NDIS plans are reviewed every year, Support Coordination can be progressively phased out or continued, according to individual needs.

“It’s about showing people how to navigate the system and building their own skills and capacity,” says Kate.

“I will sit in a face to face meeting with a consumer and we will decide together on a course of action. But instead of making a phone call to put in place what we have agreed on I will put the phone on speaker so they can make the call themselves. My role is to step in if they need any support or guidance,” she says.

Kate says that Support Coordinators also assist people to understand the type of services they want to access, and coach them through who they need to go to and what questions they need to ask when they want to connect with these services.

Sometimes people confuse Support Coordination with Plan Management which involves managing the financial aspects of an NDIS plan. Support Coordinators assist with the actual “doing,” such as engaging the most suitable service provider.

“We are lucky to have a relatively big Support Coordination team at Windermere, and we have consumers coming to us from a fairly wide geographic area across Melbourne’s south east. This means we have lots of team resources and knowledge to draw on,” says Kate.

Windermere is a registered service provider under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). To find out more talk to the team on 1300 946 337, mail info@windermere.org.au or go to: Support Coordination services.