A Support Coordinator acts like a mentor. They teach people how to access the NDIS services listed in their plan 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 may be progressively phased out or discontinued.
“It’s about showing people how to navigate the system to build 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,” 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.
“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.
To find out more about Windermere’s services talk to the team on 1300 946 337 or email info@windermere.org.au.
