The Journey to Conscious Healthcare
The Journey to Conscious Healthcare
Pre to Post NDIS from Daisy Sumersford's perspective as a social workers on the Do's & Don'ts of Support Coordination
We have made it to Episode 6 on the podcast!
This week's podcast on “The Journey to Conscious Healthcare” features Daisy Sumersford, Senior Support Coordination & Social Worker from Access4u.
This weeks podcast is called “Pre to Post NDIS from Daisy Sumersford's perspective as a social workers on the Do's & Don'ts of Support Coordination”
Today we Discuss:
- Her experience at Minda Incorporated
- Her experience transitioning from Institutionalisation to Person Centred-approach
- Challenges faced by Support Coordinators…sitting with your hands tied…
- Advocating as a social worker for participants & the joy she receives
- The role social workers play in the NDIS
- How to create capacity (Developmental Educators are being used instead of social workers at times)
- How we could look at FCA’s differently with a multidisciplinary approach (functional capacity assessment)
- Support Coordinators empowering participants with knowledge
- Where to go for information
- Importance of developing key relationships & checking in
- Frustrations with getting rejected case study with a Legally blind participant
- Disenfranchised loss & how it impact participants
- Importance of mental health understanding & training as a support coordinator
- Her mentors that have helped her along the way
- Caseloads as a support coordinator, how to manage it
- Switching off at the end of the day, is it possible?
- A day in the life of Daisy as a support coordinator
- What makes a good support coordinator - check out at (40:57)
- Daisy’s vision of 20 years into the future in the disability sector
Thought provoking ideas & conversations (please chime in):
- Should there be greater support coordinator collaboration across businesses external to each other?
- The Royal Society for the Blind (RSB)- we’d love your take on whether participants who are blind are getting support for psychological impacts of becoming blind, especially in the early stages?
- Should support coordinators have an understudy? Jake Tiver's innovative suggestion
- What should the social worker scope of practice look like in the NDIS?
Special Mentions
- Cathy Miller - (CEO)
- Karen McKew
- Aaron Bryne from National Disability Insurance Agency
- Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) (registration)
- DSC - SC Induction training
- Scott Willis GAICD - Physio role in mental health
- The Resilience Project - Hugh van Cuylenburg & Let Go
- Sian Williams - From Here 2 Home (time blocking)
Check out our episode via the link: https://conscioushealthcaresa.com.au/podcast-conscious-healthcare
Please like & share as you see fit to spread the word & educate others
Shout out to Conscious Healthcare SA for putting this all together.
Where to go to look for information:
#NDIS #SupportCoordination #Healthcare #CHSA #Access4U #TheJourneyToConsciousHealthcare #SocialWo
Welcome to episode six in the series, one of the journey to conscious healthcare, where we explore what it takes to consciously create longevity, happiness, and fulfillment in your life. And others, the journey to conscious health care looks at the healthcare industry, disability sector, and how to best navigate these areas to get the best for you and your life. This series is called the dos and don'ts of support coordination, where we take a look inside of what it's like to be an DS support coordinator and help them better navigate the ever changing the system. I'm your host, Trevor can. And I'm also the founder and CEO of conscious healthcare, an expert company that is known for high quality healthcare services and transforming the healthcare industry in the disability space. Today's show is sponsored by conscious healthcare conscious. He, we provide high quality N D I S healthcare services in the comfort of your own home. If you're interested in an easy and reliable way to navigate the N DS and access health services, please get in touch. Today's guest graduated from fly's university with a degree in social work. And so both five years experience in the disability sector, Atlin university, where she graduated, she completed double degree in social work and also social planning. She also delved into a couple courses prior, but didn't quite creative arts with creative writing focus and also majored in women's studies in the disability sector. She in may coordinator, interestingly though, prior to the N D I S inception, which involved coordinating programs as well as also quite interesting, that programs working support support to say the least involving work, a social worker, senior support coordinator, and offering counseling supports for internal staff. Her interest areas within social work are domestic violence along with drug and alcohol, which is something that she's very eager to outside of her work. She also does have her own where she does this for fun and also loves the topic of women's gender studies, Daisy, Summerford welcome. And thank you for joining us from access for you. Thank you for having me Trevor, happy to be here. Well, thank you so much. I'm very interested. Our first question, always a personal one. I'd love to know what you do when you're gonna
Speaker 2:Up. I think I'm one, those people that get to say I'm doing what I to an I ID, but I, I year eight at high school, you know, about 14 years old. I wanted to be a school counselor or at least work in mental health space. So feel that social and
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. And also staff access for you. And you also go out there and work as a social worker in counseling space, or how do you sort operate?
Speaker 2:So I pick up both referrals. So as they into access for you, I pick up support coordination and I up roles, little, but the counseling mentors. So after they've lodged an instant report or something, you know, something's happened, that's caused a bit of upset or trauma, then, you know, I'll unpack that with them and that sort of thing. So the counseling mainly happens internally.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you quite enjoy that obviously, as you were saying, I love,
Speaker 2:I love doing, yeah.
Speaker 1:It sounds like people probably light you up. And I I'm very, one of our other questions we got here is how you involved early in the disability sector. So before this whole N DS thing came around when institutionalization was a, I'm really interested if you tell about what it was.
Speaker 2:So when I sort in the disability sector, I must admit it wasn't something I had planned on doing. It came to me as my social. So I went to incorporated to do that five. And from there I stayed there ASED pivotal moment between the institutionalized model sort of, you know, rolling out the NS in. So we were having conversations about the NS from the start that had effect and as know it older. So I was still at as well, but yeah, it's very strange. So the institutionalized modeling, when was there, which was group living, it was about you or people living in each, uh, and then interesting to be a part of, well,
Speaker 1:How did you find that I'm, I'm intrigued not only you, but as a participant as well. So like, how did you find as the approach changed? Was it more engaging for a participant? Was it more engaging for a therapist or a support coordinator to be involved? Cause obviously the model is very different. So talking about it, institutionalization one size, it's all very much person centered. How did things sort change and what was it like from experience
Speaker 2:Perspective? Yeah, I think it's interesting cause, and obviously this is somewhat, uh, controversial opinion, but you know, I think people really maybe working outside of the sector really sort of saw the whole person centered therapy, um, and person-centered approaches the way of the future and the, the way to go that really empowers the participants. And I don't disagree, but we did actually have like a large percentage of who had been there since lot of them been there since were, you know, and now elderly, they were very apprehensive to move over to the new model. Mm. So a lot of them had a lot of anxiety, a lot of fears about the change that was occurring. So that was really interesting and something that I adopted as part of my sort of thesis, if you will, my last placement was around measuring and looking into that anxiety that they were experiencing with the change, um, and how it's affecting them. So yeah, there was a lot of apprehension if I'm honest about the change, more than people were clapping and welcoming the idea, which a lot of participants wanted to stay living in their big group home.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I suppose you're, I mean, we're all humans, right? Change is one of the things that don't to,
Speaker 2:I think we get to work a lot more independently and autonomously and you know, I think we're encouraged to have a sort of sense of connection and things with our clients rather than working as a sort we up approach, you know, that more so cause it's person. So it's very focused on each individual and their support needs and you know, us being able to identify that rather than looking at people as groups and things. So I think from a therapy perspective, it's preferred. Yeah. But obviously knows. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well speak challenges. I think that's sort of a good one. I'd love to go into let's dive deep, straight away. Why not? Why not? OK, good. So support coordinators, we're talking a little bit before about some of the limitations that are in place, like what's support coordinators back.
Speaker 2:So in terms of the, and support coordination very much like do not, underappreciate the support coordinator, as you know, one of the fundamental limitations that we face on a day to day basis is around that case management side of what I'd almost say is the expectation from the participant. You know, I don't think there's very clear language around what we can and count within our role, but we know that we are sort of limited in what we can do in terms of advocacy. And that choice in control really limits us as well in some respects because we're there to empower the client with choice, but we're also not supposed to really give any advice or give any bias or explain, you know, which organization we think they should go with. The opinions are sort of not. So in that respect, I find it quite, we're not really able to, you know, I guess be as hands on as helpful as we'd maybe like to be. And I think the participant often will want a more case management approach, which we can't really provide.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's really, it sounds a little bit liker or, you know, your hands, something you can't delve into the areas where you really feel like would make the most difference. Interesting. About the whole role thing though, like Aaron BES on a webinar a while back there's much different. The, of us that were in there, he spoke very well. I'm interested, there's some guidelines I've heard that are coming out. So I feel like
Speaker 2:I hope so. Yeah. So we are, I do two roles, as I explained before, one of which is social work and I really sort of rejoice in working at that capacity cause I can advocate, I can empower. And I know that the is to allow their own informed decisions, but a lot of the time Theyre saying to us, you know, can you help me? Which of these is a better option? Where should I go? Who's the right person to speak to and to have that limitation of here's, here's some options for you, but I can't, you know, weigh in any than that. So when I'm working as a social worker, I really the ability to sort of say, Hey, this is what I would do. And I feel like there's more of a human side to it. And bit more of a authentic approach that I can take as a social worker.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's, uh, it's a tricky space whether, you know, it's you in, you can't that, you know, a helpless mm-hmm<affirmative>, but on a positive note, the ASW social worker reform and everything like that's going through, I dunno if you got any thoughts about that, but be great sort, give a shout out as you're of course
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm<affirmative> uh, to with I'm over's
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's pretty exciting about the new sort of space with social work. Mm-hmm<affirmative> create recognition and just increasing fantastic. And come with that. Cause if you get the professional bodies behind it, you get the recognition from the public and stuff like that. Then that creates more doors to
Speaker 2:It's you say that? Cause it is actually a bit of a strange application in the NS, you know, social work haven't really utilized it very appropriately or, well, I would say, and that's not to criticize anybody. I just think it's across the NS, but I don't think social work's been very well understood
Speaker 1:And very well it into the disability sector, because I think a lot of the time people will go straight to developmental education for very much what social workers can do as well. So I don't think the social work's really been as explored as it probably should be in the disability sector of practice and all of stuff. Yeah. It sounds like working up the work OT can do this about everything, but hang on pediatrics, a physio can do similar things to what an OT can do. And then you've got developmental educators, as you're saying and social the, I think fundamentally it's can it's I'm I dunno about you. I'd love to everyone get service now yesterday. Good. You know, like now is great, but yesterday was better. I know
Speaker 2:Exactly. And you know, with, with social work, you're really, while you are sorting social work, you're learning to their environment. And so have that overview of how a person will fit into, I guess, you know, their environment and their situation. And we look at things holistically. So I think we're being maybe, uh, underappreciated. Maybe we could explore social work disability bit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think it's very valid point. I mean, that's something our we've sort about little bit as far as with functional capacities. Mm-hmm<affirmative> so, um, I think we might've had this conversation previously, but um, we'll open it up to the public, but fundamentally I dunno why if you, you blend social work and a physio don't you've that obviously there's get that a bit more, but I suppose it's a little bit like, well, the N DS loves having OS do reports, occupational therapist, which even wrong. We've got OS in our business, you've worked with OS and that fantastic. I think the there's so aren't we upskilling, why aren't we uping
Speaker 2:Some study to do functional capacity assess from a social worker or, you know, let's have more people doing these things instead, just limiting it to occupational therapist, as you say, Orine lands assessments being completed by educators and psychologists, you know, social workers can do them too. Mm-hmm and so it's about upskilling, I guess, once you get into the
Speaker 1:Sector. Absolutely. And it's fascinating to say that cause upskilling, you talk about the start before it's like as a support coordinator, you've what a physio dunno what an O is. They might not even know what a mentor does. It doesn't really accommodation, you know what accommodation options are out there. So how are we then to that over to a, to that, if they're not aware now, some that's such a challenging one as well, isn't it like, what do you do if they don't have the insight possibly, or even the, the knowledge cause you gotta educate and that takes a bit of time, but it's not sex, is it?
Speaker 2:No. And that's exactly where support coordinators are so valuable. Cause that kinda physio occupa would be good to support you with X, Y, and Z. So we are good at sharing that. N D I S knowledge and often, you know, amongst myself and my colleagues will quite often say, God, I can't imagine what people are doing that support coordination. You know, if it's with intellectual disabilities that might navigating the be involved from their
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, as far as being educated, I know you're saying support, educate absolutely huge part of the role, but about how support coordinators get educated. I mean, we talk about getting into the sector and physiotherapist mm-hmm have, you've got different skill and background, but fundamentally we would have an understanding in regards to what the different disciplines do. Maybe not enough would argue still, but what about someone who's noti there's so much we can talk about.
Speaker 2:It's interesting you say that. Cause we, you know, I have encountered a few support coordinators over my time that have come in quite green, you know, limited disability background, limited knowledge. But I guess in those situations, you personal experiences, well sometimes they might have family members understanding from that perspective, but to be truthful, the training kinda comes primarily from that DCS where we do webinars and induction training period. But you know, having a background inability is absolutely key really for support coordinators or having some level of knowledge. Cause that is where, where you'll be starting from. There's a to have that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I, what interested in as well as you know, what about catch and of stuff cross collaboration, not just internally, is there enough of that, that sort goes on to sort help? No, not at what can we put in place? I,
Speaker 2:I would have also ING that's no fault for the organizations. It's just that we act very independently. A lot of us work from home, particularly at the moment, but yeah, there isn't a lot of like teamwork and that's something that's really missing. And I think we all feel that we, we could have more opportunity to like with go over what's the experience of support coordinator? How can we work better? You know, those sorts of conversations don't get to be had as often as we'd like. So in terms of answer your question, I'm not sure maybe more expose and more opportunities for us to get together. And I dunno, what's your suggestion.
Speaker 1:I'm not really sure. I mean, I even casually catching up it's over drink, soft drink or whatever it might be having. Those sort opportunities is, is great. I think I quite often go out to networking events to get to know obviously on the different side of things, therapist, I think it's really great. Everyone's a bit as well. Um, there's where I'd lay, there's thousands of support coordinators around, but everyone's a little bit different. And I think being to collaborate and pick up the phone and whether you work at the same organization, helping each other out, I do feel like its a pretty nurturing space on that. You toge those and
Speaker 2:Doesn't yeah, it does. And that, that very refreshing when I came across yourself and you know, you'd introduce yourself to me and we had a bit a discussion similar to as we're having right now. And you know, I thought it was really cause I at the time was working with one of your occupa therapists who did a really wonderful assessment from my, and I remember you rang me to check in and see how it I thinks and those sorts of efforts are needed more. Even if we just reaching out say, Hey, how did that go? Or you know, what were the outcomes? You know, what were the benefits to that practitioner? Yeah. And how do they work and you know, sort of sharing that knowledge a bit more, probably be warranted in
Speaker 1:On that. I think fundamentally I've had this come up a few times with love to hear thoughts, communication, transparency being heard, felt understood. I think really important in this space because you know, I report or, you know, as a support coordinator when you're doing these reports, sometimes the line's quiet. So the might think, Hey, nothing's going on? But quite often a lot's happening whether you see it or not. I think just being in the loops really important, I think,
Speaker 2:And my, I can't really on any other organizations, but we're encouraged to get in with our, you know, at least once a week, even if it's just a phone call and, you know, sending reports of things that we're doing. So they do understand that there is a lot of, I, a lot of like lot of the social support, social is happening sort of behind the scenes. And I think for the participants to be made aware of that and you know, sort of track along with us is important.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And having a positive feedback passed on. Yeah, exactly. Good news. Doesn't fly probably as well as it bloody
Speaker 2:Bad news seems to though. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well not look, we face adversity every day. I think that's, you're
Speaker 2:Across other people from external organizations, you know, often enough. And it's interesting all of our shared experiences, even though whatever of the N D I S you come from, we all have those unique experiences that, uh, I guess to sector and know, speaking on myself and my colleagues, we really relish in the opportunity to get together and chat. We know that most people don't understand what it's like to do our role and to do our job. So I think any opportunity to have more of that is, and this podcast probably is helping along the way,
Speaker 1:Whilst we about passionate's case, share someone that you previously, in regards to having, we,
Speaker 2:You, in my role, I came across a participant or referral of a young lady, about 27, who had recently lost her vision entirely. She was complaining of headaches doctor and she was dismissed over and over again. You know, he was that she probably had migraine, you know, take some panol and what have, and then she woke up one morning and was completely legally blind, lost her vision entirely. So I came into the picture on her first N DS plan, which underfunded. So we went straight to review before we did anything else and was really needed, was psychology. Cause she's dealing with complete loss of vision and you know, this is that yeah. And Ram health. And so she said, all I really want outta my is so I can talk to someone about this experience. I said, yeah, no worries. So I put all of the, you know, we got A2 fund. So capacity assessment got all the right reports. You did all the right steps. Went to review, came back with the, and they denied funding for psychology stating that it was not related to the disability. So there
Speaker 1:You go. That opens up a can of worm. I mean, I'm a bit of a psychology student by day. I love psychology. We've a, it's really intriguing disenfranchised. I don't know how much you know about that, but I mean the example, there you go through someone that's become deaf, you know, like still alive, but you know, like people can't understand what that was like to then be able to see you see before you can't. So that's a, that's a around actually you stroke. So someone has a stroke. Mm-hmm<affirmative> the person that they were known to be is sort of now dead. They're alive of course. But like, they're not the same person. They're not kicking the football or throw the netball or either tennis or something like that, where they, before now they've actually that's related thing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's very similar to, you know, brain injury part. So, you know, yesterday could have been so totally different that everyone knew was so and so, and then, you know, that resulting in injury where, you know, they have a and go through all those experiences and one would argue that it is absolutely related to the disability. You know, particularly with my participant who lost her vision, I would say that she's experie mental concerns or concerns because she lost vision. So that is, I would argue and I tried to argue it, you know, I did a review of a reviewable decision. You have to say, you have to say that one slowly cause review of a reviewable decision. Yeah. So we, we, we went back to review straight away and I tried to argue again, but like I said earlier, support argue, but I tried to get all the right evidence. Yeah. And still it continued getting denied. So it's just unfortunate. However, I will make mention though, there seems to be some positive changes in that now, like we're seeing, you know, psychosocial recovery coaching and psychosocial based being a bit met with, from NS that's necessarily psychosocial that
Speaker 1:Physio, you talk about mental health and all that. One of the conversations that came out was just when you're talking about mental health, like, so if someone's on physio table or if someone's doing some exercise, it's amazing how much they'll just open up. Yeah. I'm sure you probably that be just about initial heart, just cause they've much going on. I think there's so much to be said about actually having someone just be there to be heard and school
Speaker 2:Actually validated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree
Speaker 1:With that. It's a challenging one. As far as to see where that's gonna like psychosocial recovery, more and more support. I dunno if you've that's
Speaker 2:Massively, massively. Yeah. Yeah. I don't wanna put foot in it, but yes, there's a huge decrease in, in support coordination. And it's interesting what you saying before around and trainings and it's very true. What you say is that a lot of just out interesting, we don't really encourage or have a great deal of mental health training, even just for support coordinators. Obviously the psychosocial recovery coaches require that mental health background or training, but it's interesting. Cause one could argue anyone working in this sector might
Speaker 1:From the resilience project, goes through that quite a lot. And I was reading this book. I dunno if you've seen about, I've gotta about this. Let go amazing book. OK. And it just goes through in regards to mental health and you know, like, I mean suicides of different topics that S more than ever. Absolutely. I think it's really important that we, you know, don't that's aid uping or matter what it's pointing, developing really just up.
Speaker 2:It's not sexy. Like majority of us are experiencing mental health and being compromised, mental health to situation for us. But our particularly benefit from us that you normalizing.
Speaker 1:So that's really big whilst you talk about growth mentors, they always a good place for growth or anyone that sort helped you along your journey that you'd like to give a shout, shout out to at all, how they might have influenced
Speaker 2:You. I've met some wonderful people along the way. I've got a couple of people I could mention Kathy Miller who's our CEO at access was also my CEO at, so she's being quite pivotal in that transition from institution to the person centered approach. And I access for you kind of born out of that transition so that we took what we knew from the past and then opened up a new business around the future. I think Cathy has been very sort of, I guess, a pioneer pioneer. Love it. Yeah. In that, in that area. Sorry. I appreciate her. I also had some wonderfuls who, into friends, such as Karen MC I would mention as being a really good mentor to me. Yeah. You meet wonderful people in this sector all the time. Big heart, big minds. Yeah. Massively.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think a lot of people matter role you're in mentors, always. I can't remember who the quote, like having someone that sort of got greater school level than you, someone has got a law school level and then someone is where you're at as well. So it's some sort it the day, but I think that's really true. Like, so you're actually yourself learning as a support, then I really can actually get them off speed. And I have this really weird's moving around. That's
Speaker 2:<laugh> yeah, absolutely
Speaker 1:Information. Lots of it out there. Good, bad, ugly.<affirmative> where do you get it?
Speaker 2:That's interesting question. Isn't it? Cause I find the end have their own language, you know? So I think the short answer to that is that you would go to your NS, you know, website and look at the information, but it's about understanding that language. So really I find people that have worked in, like you said before, more experienced people with a lot of knowledge, I would often go to maybe a superior or something to better my understanding of something. But in terms of just the general public accessing information, I suppose yeah. Through the NS or through local organizations and providers who usually got a lot of information.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So where you, well, as far as recommendations, I'm always interested, so recommendations that you hear from support coordinators or things you might get support to see away from.
Speaker 2:I told you we're not allowed to recommend. I'm just kidding. Um, yes. Recommendations in recommendations, recommendations,
Speaker 1:Support coordinator, better handle themselves, you know, like what are some pitfalls I remember from here to home, she was talking regards to say, might be absolutely. Or it might be, Hey, you know, like, and over
Speaker 2:Extend yourself, overextending yourself happens a lot. Burnout happens a lot. Cause we're put in that awkward position of pretty much case managing without being allowed to, but it's kinda happening anyway. So I think, you know, you can get burnt out a lot of, you know, caseloads, you know, around to 40 participants all at once and we're trying to sort help them support them in their world. And it becomes very intrusive into your personal life as well. So I think my advice support would be to one that I actually in university was, you know, have like a necklace item, whatever you wanna wear that you wear to work and that you take off when you get home to kinda give you that trigger around, you know, I'm letting work, stay at work and I'm, so it's like a physical representation of you checking in and checking
Speaker 1:Out the
Speaker 2:Perfect person you're gonna be involved new clients. And they say, you know, have that protective roll up. And that's usually the advice, but the truth is sometimes you can't help yourself, but have compassion and everyth empathy and wanna help people. And so I think it's just around making sure that you still pay equal attention to your own personal wellbeing as well, getting lost in everybody.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's the thing, isn't it there's very much helping people that wanna help get drawn this industry very much lovely that's right. Caring, nurturing, that's right. People that have got hearts of gold and then, you know, you've got a system that's right. I think it's just really about around boundaries. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, mm-hmm<affirmative> that something with place about that off mm-hmm<affirmative> when you, how do
Speaker 2:You're that between it's restrictions in place? Like I'm gonna turn my phone off or I'm gonna close my laptop down those sorts of things that to sort preserve your own mental wellbeing, but yeah, absolutely having people around you that can lift you up. And, and I think this is just a opinion. I feel as though I do have a good understanding, comprehensive what to be professional and to have professionalism, but I also don't think people should, should be considered professional beings 24 7. I think having that relatability as well and a bit of sort of humanity to your approach and support coordination, you know, whether it be dressing down or casual and meeting with clients, feeling, you know, creates that feeling, I guess, for them a bit more comfortability and relat, not that you are, there
Speaker 1:Is some sort of well being approach it's that's cultural sensitivity. I would argue as far as being appropriate when you're up and absolutely. You don't wanna create a divide there you're no, no. Someone's missed a memo of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So finding that line between making sure you're professional, but also relatable.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Well talk about counseling. We've little, so support obstacles.<affirmative> how do you reckon they should look after themselves? Like, as you talked about just before, about taking off your, what is it taking a bath? Like what, what, what sort things do support coordinators do to just let go?
Speaker 2:I'll you something,<laugh> something I try not about not have a tendency to just carry on and on and on talking to each other and to, to, you know, and what have we, but I think it's important. This is to just, you know, keep work at work and do things like go for a run, you know, release endorphins even. And if you're not big exercise person, like admittedly, I'm not exercise person, but I'll usually after work, I'll walk just sort of things that some and things that just very slow pace and can kinda take reser yourself a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Podcast and stuff like that as well, podcast. Well, I mean, have, mention your podcast, maybe we won't give it a plugin that you really wanna
Speaker 2:<laugh>. I would, yeah. I it's it's w not work all, but it's more about, you know, and lifestyle and it's, uh, good. We've interviewed, you know, a few cool characters like from, at contestant and we interview Thornton who was married to Scott. So yeah, it's something that we both myself and my co host, we really enjoy doing our podcast. It's a bit of a unwind.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think that's something to get, you know, it's a, a really good thing. Mm-hmm<affirmative> typical day. Have we got one what's a typical day look like for
Speaker 2:You typical day. God<laugh>. That would, no, that would be much easier to answer before COVID<laugh> before
Speaker 1:We had this, well, let's launch
Speaker 2:It up and to the office.<laugh> so we're all working from home, but typical day will be getting up in the morning and usually I'll check my emails to start off with report writing, checking in on participants, make sure they're doing OK. Cause like we said earlier, this situation's affecting everybody in different. Yeah. So it's, justing sure that their supports all up to date, you know, if they need anything, but typical day is very grapple. So we would, you wanna touch base and normally guests we'll go and have a catch up and whatever they need, but we can't really be doing that at the moment. So we're having to transition over to mainly, you know, zoom and those sorts of things, but it's become a challenge cause so many of our don't have the sort of technology and to in that way. So typical day, very much different at the moment. We're trying our best to support our participants in a COVID friendly fashion. Yeah. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1:You talk about that supporting, but engage, engage people know sometimes you bump into someone and you speak up and you say something, whereas otherwise you can go a long time, not a lot happening.
Speaker 2:So that's right. So usually at the moment sport's very busy, but normally I really do miss face to face to a opportunity they can open up and there's a lot of nonverbal communication opportunity. So I feel like they probably do tend to feel more, more encouraged to give you full story and unpack things with you a bit more in person. But I think it's just about you sending my participants prefer that I just text and, but it's just checking in, you know, making sure everything's OK. Particularly like the participants, which is, I would say I'm gonna go off, make out my own statistics. Now I reckon about 70 of my participants have a mentor. Yeah. So that's the key sort of service that I always be checking in is making sure that's happening and that're getting, you know, their support needs next a their, their, you know, so just usual,
Speaker 1:Well oil machine. Yeah. Well, speaking of well oil, so when support coordination's done well specialists or general doesn't matter, what's it look like? What's a good support coordinator look like describe
Speaker 2:Support coordinator. I think that's very valuable quality is to be open and honest and transparent because the reason I say that is a lot of the time you find that your participant will have a lot of funding concerns. And instead of I think giving that false sense of, you know, okay, we can you to a review and you'll get everything you're asking for. Yeah. It's about that around what, you know, some enthusiasm I think around expectations and, and just explain to the part process, well, I think that's happen. And then this is the eventual outcome, hopefully. Yeah. Um, so instead of just going OK, you and then off and doing things behind the scenes that they're not really understanding why. Um, so I think, yeah, regular communication, regular contact. And I guess it's difficult though. A lot of, a lot of, so time important as a and how you prioritize. Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is enough worms as well. I'm sure
Speaker 1:It's around the office out though. This has been very regularly spoken about prioritization on your plate than what you can probably handle,
Speaker 2:I think. Yeah. And the trying bite off too
Speaker 1:Much, I guess,
Speaker 2:Elephant all at once. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. One by a time<laugh> yeah. That is a definite positive aspect to a support coordinator, time management. Cause it's very difficult to have time management if I'm in role cause and how to prioritize for, let's say I've got a few reports and things to that I'm writing then, you know, a client may call me with some sort crisis situation, you know, that becomes a priority. But our day to day is very much like you might be something, someone calls you over you, it becomes sort difficult thing to navigate sort of. So I think good time management skills, a good understanding of what's a priority, which is usually a crisis situation will come above a report. But yeah. So it's about managing that
Speaker 1:And maybe coming up with idea. So you're not just getting stuck and being paralyzed by that, I guess like, so if you've got a team support coordinators or I sort wonder a little bit about support coordinators that are independent, so they're just, but um, this lovely lady and flick she's on holidays, flick, flick through a couple referrals and I'm like, you're on a holiday now that happens all the time. Doesn't
Speaker 2:Sort support. It doesn't stop. Doesn't there's no, and he's another support coordinator at my workplace. He actually made a suggestion that we should maybe have almost somewhat of an understudying when we're taking on participants. So in the event that we need to have a bit a collaborative approach or some offload or interchange with support coordination. So I actually, we haven't implemented that, but I think it's a good idea to be hopped, you know, oh, massive having someone else that knows your client with all the right consent to share information in place, but someone, all the red tape off all the red tape boxes, but then having someone else that understands your client's needs as well. So you can kinda workshops about, Hey, this is cause you do, you can find yourself really isolated. You know, you've got a very complex lot of complex and sometimes you find yourself, you know, and I think it sort of someone that you can back and forth with that knows your client situation as well.
Speaker 1:I think that's really, you think about no one around forever and it's not only that's when you meant to then sort of scheduling your leave around that mm-hmm<affirmative> so you wanna be there in times when you need to be there. And I, someone else that could take on that would be really important and that flexibility as well, fresh as well, differents, I think that's multidisciplinary.
Speaker 2:So me too.
Speaker 1:Well we've come to that time. It's our final question. Sure. So let's pretend it's 20 years into the future and we achieve success. Yep. We've got success. The disability sector. What does, what does
Speaker 2:That's question? Cause what a wild question it's like. Hmm. How is that gonna look? I think the future really is more of a holistic approach. Like we have been talking about throughout this episode is, you know, working more collaboratively, sharing more uping individuals, I think, and practitioners, I think the future would be everyone working less silos, more open ended sort of support, um, people working collaboratively and yeah. Having that real holistic look and overview of each participant and yeah. Sharing it more information, working more together as a team. I think that would probably benefit the NS.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a ripple, chucking, a little PEB, a pond or a or something
Speaker 2:I'm saying I asking too much. Oh no.
Speaker 1:It's seeing that ripple effect go on how and
Speaker 2:Around wanting to share their information and wanting to, um, I guess work together. I think the future would be much brighter if we were all sort of helping one another to help our
Speaker 1:Or to a bright future. Eh, yeah. We've been talking to Daisy Summerford and engaging passionate social worker and special support coordinator from access Daisy. Where can people go get a bit more information about what
Speaker 2:Sow you? And there's plenty of information about the services that we offer, the practitioners that we have access view. We do have majority of services available to our participants. So, you know, mentoring, developmental education and sport in living. So yeah, I would just advise by what have a look.
Speaker 1:Thank you so
Speaker 2:Much for yours.